


Check Yes, Juliet

by Galpalkru



Series: The 100 HSAU--Check Yes, Juliet [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-03-20 01:28:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3631518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galpalkru/pseuds/Galpalkru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 100 HSAU, featuring party animal Clarke Griffin, brilliant scholarship student and former track star Raven Reyes, "sheltered" Octavia Blake, adorably intense Lexa Heda, protective and immortal older sister Anya, and a host of other characters who are distinctly less covered in blood than their TV counterparts. When Lexa and Clarke meet at a "Young Leaders" conference, the two agree to start a community service project between their schools in order to boost their resumes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Short Skirt/Long Jacket

**Author's Note:**

> On tumblr under the same URL (may be changing soon). Warnings for alcohol, drug use, sexual content (eventually), and teen angst. 
> 
> So this is my first foray into fan fiction since Aeropostale polo shirts were cool. Your basic HSAU for The 100, with necessary changes made so that not everyone is a blood-covered orphan, etc.

“Seriously, Griffin, you’re going to spend one of your last few days of freedom in a stuffy convention center talking about leadership?”

Hair tie secured around her ponytail, Clarke turned to Raven, who sat seated at the island in Clarke’s kitchen, restlessly fiddling with a paper clip.

“It wasn’t exactly voluntary,” she said, filling a glass of water from the sink before taking a long gulp. August had been scorching hot in Ark City, and the freshly ironed blazer suffocating Clarke’s shoulders wasn’t particularly helping.

Raven smirked. “Mama G laying down the law again?” She pointed at the glass of water as she raised her eyebrows in Clarke’s direction. In response, Clarke filled another from the cabinet and pushed it her way.

“I think she just wants me to keep busy. I don’t know. But it’s supposed to look great on your resume, no matter what you want to do, and there’ll be reps from colleges all over.”

Finishing her glass, Raven returned to the paper clip, this time making it dance along the rim. Clarke lunged forward and snatched the glass from her as Raven let out an indignant noise.

“You’ve scratched enough of my glasses in one way or another. I’m going to have to start buying plastic just for you,” Clarke said. Placing the glasses in the dishwasher, she wiped her hands on her pencil skirt, an act that would surely have given her mother an aneurysm. But getting Clarke into a suit had been hard enough that Abby likely knew that keeping it clean for too long was a lost cause.

“I’m honored,” Raven said, pulling her phone out of her pocket as it vibrated. “Monty and Jasper are meeting Bell at his place for Call of Duty and ‘experiments with intoxicating instruments.’” Seeing Clarke’s quirked eyebrow, she explained, “Jasper.” Clarke laughed, glancing over to the microwave clock.

“Shit. I gotta go too. Do you need a ride or…” Her voice trailed off as she stared at the crutches leaning against the table.

“Nah,” Raven said nonchalantly as she pushed herself up, using the edge of the table for support. “Fucked up the non-driving leg.” Picking up the crutches with a subtle grimace, she eased herself gingerly onto them and grabbed her keys. Clarke followed suit, slipping her phone into her blazer pocket and sliding on the pair of heels that her mother had forced her to painstakingly polish the night before.

When they reached the door, Raven turned to Clarke. “If you still feel as if we delinquents are worthy of your time after such a meeting of the minds,” she drawled, “drop by Bell’s. I’ll try to keep them alive for as long as I can, but no promises.” Clarke laughed, meeting Raven in an awkward side hug as she leaned on her good leg for support. With Raven out the door, Clarke headed for the garage, cursing her mother under her breath for the hell that surely awaited her.

* * *

 Lexa Heda surveyed her straightened hair for about the fifteenth time. After arguing for two straight hours, she’d finally accepted Anya’s statement that ‘braids were not acceptable in a professional environment,’ and had spent the better part of the night before with a straightener, getting her curls acceptably under control. The final result was…adequate. The pantsuit that she’d painstakingly ironed for the past hour was still flawless and lint-free, and her eyeliner had managed to age her by a couple of years, which she appreciated – no one takes you seriously when you look like Bambi.

The pants were unlikely to stay wrinkle-free with the rate at which she was nervously twisting her hands into them. Three Rivers High was rarely included on the list of schools from which students at these conferences came, and she was determined to prove she deserved to be there just as much as any of them. Her folder and legal pad were prepared with lists of college scouts with whom to speak, questions for the seminars, and three different color-coded and highlighted itineraries (contingency plans were necessary, of course).

“Lex!” Anya’s voice rang out from the next room. Lexa whirled around, grabbing her materials and frantically searching for a pen to go with the three others stashed in her jacket. “You have five minutes or I’m leaving you!”

“I’ll be right there!” Her right hand landed on a pen imprinted with Shane Brewery on its top. The familiar icy sensation flooded up her arm, and she shut her eyes as she drew in tight breaths. Seven, six, five, four… She wouldn’t cry today. Today was about the future and moving on, not dwelling on the past. After a moment’s hesitation, she placed the pen in the inside pocket of the blazer.

“Lexa!” Anya’s tone was sharper this time, and Lexa knew that her threat was serious. Bursting through the door, she almost slammed into her sister, arm poised to knock.

“You all right there?” Anya asked, noting Lexa’s slightly glassy eyes and creased pants.

“Yes. Let’s just go.” She shifted her folder from one hand to the other, tapping her free hand manically on her leg.

Anya raised both eyebrows, but turned and shouldered her gym bag as she headed for the door, Lexa in tow.

* * *

 By the time the doorbell rang, Jasper had already turned Bellamy’s den into a veritable hotbox. Eyes burning, Bellamy pushed himself off the couch and jogged to the front door. As he opened it, Raven scrunched her face as she met his gaze.

“Are you even trying to cover that up?” she said, pushing herself through the door past Bellamy. In the past, Raven likely would’ve hopped the back fence and climbed through a window or something just to freak him out; seeing her ring the doorbell and just walk through like a decent human being set off a sharp pang in his chest.

Following her into the den, Bellamy watched Jasper pull off the ridiculous swimming goggles he always wore when intoxicated. “Raven Re-yes,” he slurred, excessively enunciating each syllable. Monty, sitting to his left, wore a slightly embarrassed expression, one he had sported so often in 12 years of knowing Jasper that Bellamy was shocked that his face hadn’t frozen that way.

“How you doing there, Jay?” Raven leaned on her right crutch and accepted a sloppy high five from Jasper before turning to her left. “Miller! Didn’t realize you’d be here.”

Nathan Miller smiled widely, or as widely as he could manage after four hits of Jasper’s homemade bubbler. “Sup Reyes? Haven’t seen you much this summer,” he said, looking immediately uncomfortable as his eyes landed on the crutches.

Raven didn’t seem to notice, or ignored it if she did. “Been busy,” she replied as she lowered herself into the empty seat next to him and leaned her crutches against the arms of the chair. “Someone’s gotta run these streets, and I’m the best candidate.” Miller cautiously grinned in response, then turned his attention back to the TV where Bellamy and Monty were engaged in an intense Call of Duty deathmatch, jostling each other as they played. As they watched, Bellamy fell off a wall to his death. Raven turned her attention to Jasper, who was deeply concentrating on the path of an ant across the table.

The front door slammed shut a moment later, causing Jasper, Bellamy, and Miller to jump a foot in the air. Monty, who’d abstained from partaking in Jasper’s creation’s maiden voyage, turned a curious eye to Bellamy.

“Bell?” A girl’s voice, unfamiliar to Raven, rang through the house. Jasper suddenly looked like a little kid on Christmas morning, springing up from his chair.

“Wait, is Octavia back?” he said, attempting to smooth back his hair to no avail. “Dude!”

Bellamy grinned. “She’s been back for a couple of weeks. I just didn’t feel the need to broadcast it for…obvious reasons.” He turned to Jasper with one of the most menacing looks Raven had ever seen on his face. “In here, O!”

The door opened, revealing a breathtaking dark-haired girl, clad in a pair of jeans shorts and a tank top. Raven realized that this must have been the mysterious Octavia, Bellamy’s younger sister who had recently been allowed to return from boarding school. From what she knew, Octavia had been friends with Clarke and the others back in elementary school, but had been sent away to boarding school by her overprotective mother after the divorce. They’d all stayed in touch via Skype and Facebook, but she’d spent most of her summers with their father in Portland.

“Jesus Christ, Bell.” Octavia leaned back towards the door as she was hit by a wave of Jasper’s handiwork, blinking a couple of times as Bellamy leaned forward to hug her. “Maybe I understand why Mom had me locked away all these years.” Over Bellamy’s shoulder, she locked eyes with Jasper. “Jay! You haven’t changed a bit!”

Jasper’s face dropped, but he gratefully accepted the hug she offered him. Smiling at Miller and Monty, Octavia turned to Raven in the chair. “Hi,” she said, cautiously offering Raven a wave.

“Hey. Raven Reyes. I go to school with these assholes. I take it you’re this one’s sister?” she asked, jerking her thumb in Bellamy’s direction.

Octavia chuckled, her face brightening. “Octavia Blake,” she said. “Recently returned from six long years of solitude at boarding school.” She took Bellamy’s place next to Jasper on the couch, who looked like it was literally the best moment of his life as she reached across him for the bubbler. Expertly lighting it (to Bellamy’s horror), she took a deep hit before handing it back to Jasper. “So, what do y’all do for fun around here?”

* * *

 It wasn’t as horrible as Clarke had expected. The college selection was surprisingly varied beyond the STEM-happy cadre that she’d expected, and she’d had a particularly lengthy conversation with the rep from the Art Institute of Chicago. Because her mother was sure to ask, she’d dropped by the Johns Hopkins booth, picked up a few brochures, and halfheartedly placed her name on a ListServ before allowing herself a couple of cookies at the snack table as a reward.

The other participants varied from the quiet, thick-rimmed glasses squad that she’d expected to a tall, statuesque girl who strikingly resembled a real-life Barbie, yet fluently spoke eight languages. Her assigned table for the opening seminar consisted of two guys who spent the whole time speaking in hushed whispers about their efforts to learn some made-up fantasy language called Trisgedasleng (or it could’ve been Elvish, for all Clarke knew), two girls and a guy from Weather High, a school about twenty minutes away, with whom she’d spent the last fifteen minutes drawing caricatures of the speakers, and a silent, stone-faced girl who refused to remove her blazer despite the temperature being somewhere around ninety degrees.

This girl had caught Clarke’s attention early on. Not just because her cheekbones and jawline were defined beyond belief, but also because the intensity that she regarded everything with was weirdly…breathtaking. If it wouldn’t have been creepy, it might have been enough for Clarke to stop her napkin doodles in order to capture that gaze. The girl’s eyes flitted over to Clarke, and she realized she’d been staring. Nudging Amy, one of the girls from Weather High, she added another couple of lines to the already less than flattering portrait of the frog-faced professor behind the podium. Amy burst out laughing and slammed her face into the table in an attempt to cover it up, earning her a severe glance from the mysterious girl.

Forty minutes later, Clarke followed her schedule to a ballroom-like chamber in the complex. A set of risers sat up against a stage near the front, and about six other business-clad students clustered around. On the edge of the group, staring intently and motionlessly at her phone, was the girl from the seminar. Clarke made her way over and tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped and swung her head around, hands gripping the edge of the stage almost defensively.

“Hi, I’m Clarke.” When no response was offered in return, she continued. “We were sitting at the same table earlier.”

A pregnant moment of silence later, the girl looked up, startlingly bright eyes locking with Clarke’s. “Lexa.” She offered her hand, meeting Clarke’s in a firm, decisive handshake.

“Lexa. Ok,” Clarke said, hanging onto Lexa’s hand for a moment longer than she intended to. The other girl pulled her hand back suddenly, returning it to its white-knuckled grasp on the stage. “Where do you go to school?”

“Three Rivers High School, in Ark City.”

“No way! I go to Ark Academy. That’s like—what—ten minutes apart or something, right?”

Lexa’s grasp seemed to relax, even as she sat ramrod-straight. “I believe so.” Following another pause, Clarke glanced away for a moment, regretting the decision to introduce herself vastly. To her surprise, it was Lexa who continued this time. “So you’re here for the conference?”

Clarke looked back to find Lexa’s eyes boring into her own. “Certainly not here for the food,” she joked, almost catching a smile on Lexa’s lips. Lexa’s amazingly well-formed lips. “My mom’s a doctor and knew her alma mater was gonna be here, and so here I am, I guess?”

Lexa nodded. “I’m also here for college. Networking is important, and there is no atmosphere better than a situation like this, surrounded by so many gifted young leaders.”

Clarke awkwardly smiled, unsure how to deal with someone this young and serious. “Yeah, totally,” she said, only to be thankfully cut off by the entrance of the session leader. On his command, the group sat in a circle, Lexa at Clarke’s left. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she caught Lexa staring at her out of the corner of her eye. However, when she looked over, that intense gaze was right across the circle at the pimple-faced kid introducing himself.

* * *

 She knew Clarke had caught her staring. She’d been caught off guard enough when she’d first seen the girl, all golden hair, absurdly blue eyes, and fitted skirt. When Clarke had come up and introduced herself, Lexa’s first instinct had been to immediately find a reason to head to the other side of the room. It only got worse as Clarke animatedly and naturally led the group discussion about youth service, discussing her experiences volunteering at a hospital.

This was one area in which Lexa felt horribly underprepared. Despite having straight As, captaining the debate and track teams, and leading Student Government, she’d never really had time for community service. Her underfunded public school hadn’t worked hard to provide opportunities for service, and Lexa was, truthfully, intimidated by the resumes of some of these other participants.

As the session came to an end, Mr. Sinclair dismissed them with a challenge to create a volunteer program at their own schools. “It’s a great way to make friends,” he said, “and to benefit the community as a whole.” The whole group stood up, awkwardly milling around, except for Clarke, who remained on the ground, transfixed by an intricate drawing that she’d begun on her schedule.

“If you keep that up, you won’t be able to see what you have next.” Lexa immediately regretted her decision to speak as Clarke, startled, covered up whatever she’d been drawing. “Sorry.”

“No worries. Thanks for snapping me out of my…whatever I was doing,” Clarke said, standing up and rolling her shoulders. “So, community service.”

“Yeah.” Lexa awkwardly shifted her weight to her other leg. “Sadly the weak point on my resume. Clearly not yours.”

Clarke grinned, and Lexa’s regret faded slightly. “Yeah, but it’s all medical stuff, and I don’t really think that’s where I’m headed…anymore.” She waved her schedule so that the doodle, a superbly detailed recreation of the city skyline, was visible. “I’m thinking of art or something, you know? So I kind of need to prove that I like things other than sutures.”

Lexa smiled despite herself. “Well, I know Three Rivers hasn’t really got much of a community service program or anything. So I’ve been stumped--”

“—Unless,” Clarke interrupted, gazing excitedly at Lexa, “we start a program!”

“What?”

“Joint program! Ark has funding for like community outreach and stuff where we can partner with other schools for joint clubs, sports, or whatever, when there’s not as much of an interest at either school, or not advisors, or anything. I don’t know.” She shook her head briefly as if her thoughts were coming too quickly. “Joint community service program. Three Rivers and Ark.” Lexa’s expression naturally shifted into of quizzical disbelief. “C’mon!! Isn’t this what being a young leader is all about? Taking charge and all that, making a change?”

“I guess?”

“You said you were Student Body President during your introduction, right?” Lexa briefly marveled that Clarke had caught that. “This is something we could totally organize. I need this, you need this, it’d be good for our schools. Hell, it’d even be good press-wise probably.”

Lexa considered the proposition for a moment. Three Rivers didn’t have the funding to do something like this on their own, but if Ark wanted to pick it up…the schools were close by and had little interaction, being in different athletic conferences and generally catering to different demographics. Being able to put this sort of program organization on her resume could push Lexa towards a service scholarship, especially if she could somehow tie it into student government. She could always bully Lincoln into helping, and he had his legion of football cronies of whom she could take advantage. And Clarke…well, Clarke was an unknown factor, but she seemed trustworthy and motivated enough.

“I can organize the whole thing,” Clarke continued. “I’ll talk to Jaha the second we get back. He loves this kind of outreach, and it’ll also be bringing the community together and…yes. This is happening.” Clarke pulled out her phone and flipped it so the bottom faced Lexa. “Give me your number.”

“What?”

“Coordination requires communication,” Clarke droned, quoting the morning speaker. “But c’mon. For real, talking helps.”  
Handling it like some strange baby bird, Lexa took the phone, adding her contact information before sending a quick text to herself with a simple “Clarke Griffin.”

As her phone buzzed with another text, Clarke nodded, her expression hidden by the curtain of blonde hair that she’d let loose during the session. “Alright, cool. This is good. We’re doing this. If it works out, we can drink to our school’s alliance. Or not. Whatever.” Pulling out her schedule, she muttered a curse under her breath. “Ok, I’m late for ‘The Body Language of Leaders’ and not all of us stand perfectly straight at all times. I’ll talk to you later.”

With that, she jogged out of the room, high heels in her hand, leaving a perplexed and strangely short of breath Lexa behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so that was that. Yes, exposition galore. Yes, necessary. Things pick up as people go to the High School part of the High School AU. Let me know what y’all think, and thanks for reading!
> 
> PS. Thanks to Viridicus for reading to check if this was worth anyone's time. They're also writing a Clexa fic, so go check that out!
> 
> Going to attempt to update every Saturday, but I am a student attempting to graduate. I shall do my utmost to satisfy anyone who wants to read though.


	2. Tennis Court

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where they go back to school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So thank you all for the positive feedback! I really appreciate it, so I guess I’ll consider this worth continuing on and try to keep to a decent schedule (may be interrupted the weekend I’m at a frat formal, but I’ll try to have that written and dealt with in time). So now that HS part of the HSAU is starting…enjoy!

Raven Reyes shifted uncomfortably in the small desk chair. Apparently Ark Academy’s huge operating budget didn’t spread so far as to provide decently comfortable chairs in the principal’s office. Looking through the vast window behind the table in front of her, Raven could see students slowly filing in, exchanging various forms of greetings after the long summer.

 

Startled out of her thoughts by the door slamming to her right, Raven whipped her head around to see Principal Thelonious Jaha making his way to the armchair across the desk from her, a thick file in his hand. “Sorry for the wait,” he said, taking a seat as he opened the folder and thumbed through a few of the pages included. A few moments later, he looked up and folded his hands over the desk with a deep sigh.

 

“So, let me say first, Miss Reyes, I was deeply sorry to hear of your accident.”

 

Raven forced her eyes up, cracking a weak smile. “Thank you,” she mumbled, forcing herself to sit up, still incapable of reaching Jaha’s eye level, once again due to the stupid chair.

 

“Obviously, this, ah…” Lost for words, Jaha resorted to that same damn pitying smile Raven had seen so many times over the past few months. She gripped the arms of the desk chair and forced herself to hold his gaze. “Incident,” he continued, clearing his throat. “This incident forces us to renegotiate your scholarship status. You are responsible for your own finances and proceedings, correct?”

 

“Don’t see anyone with me, do you?”

 

 Jaha’s brow furrowed, and she realized that perhaps sarcasm wasn’t the best approach when dealing with the person who held your academic future in his hands. “Sorry,” she muttered, quickly casting her eyes down.

 

“It’s quite all right,” Jaha said. “While you may have previously been on an athletic scholarship, your grades are superb, and I see no issue with reworking you into an academic scholarship at the same level.”

 

Slowly looking up, Raven allowed herself a genuine smile. “Yeah? I mean, thank you. I really need to stay here. I…I appreciate it.”

 

“Of course.” Jaha smiled, reaching into his desk for a thick stack of forms. “A few requirements will change here. I’m not particularly concerned about you maintaining the requisite grade point average, but there’s an additional requirement for membership in an academic organization, preferably holding a leadership role or starting one yourself, and participation in some sort of community service project.”

 

Raven nodded. It would be nice to have something to fill the time after school that track and cross country had previously taken up, and there was only so long she could mope around Clarke’s house before Abby Griffin would have to claim her as a dependent. “I can do that,” she said, leaning forward in an attempt to read the minuscule fine print on the documents.

 

Jaha pulled a large envelope out of his desk, sliding the papers in before writing Raven’s name on the front and handing them to her. “Wonderful, Miss Reyes. If you could just read these over, fill them out, and get them back to my office by the end of the week, everything will be set.”

 

Slipping the folder into her backpack, Raven leaned over to grab the crutches. “One more thing,” Jaha said. Raven gulped, slowly sliding her eyes back to meet his. “You’ve gone through an ordeal over the past few months, and I would be remiss if I didn’t offer the services of our counseling departme—“

 

“No.” Raven’s voice came out sharper than she’d intended, but she was almost glad as it hid the tightness building in her throat. “I’m fine. I just need to get back into a routine.”

 

Jaha paused for a moment before standing up and moving towards the door. “All right, Miss Reyes,” he said, opening it as Raven pulled herself up onto the crutches. “My office is always available if you change your mind.”

 

She nodded, forcing a small smile as she passed by the principal and out into the hallway.

* * *

 

Three brief knocks sounded throughout the apartment. Lexa, after finishing and placing her final braid, hopped off her bed and jogged to the door. As she opened it, she was greeted by Lincoln’s massive frame. She laughed as she was immediately engulfed in a bear hug.

 

“I missed you too,” she said. Stepping back, she hit him on the arm, noting a new tattoo that surely had sent his mother into a panic. “Remember when I was taller than you?”

 

He smiled, dropping his backpack onto the couch before tousling her hair. “I’m pretty sure that was about four years ago.” He walked towards the tiny kitchen alcove, grabbing a soda from the fridge and leaning against the wall. “So, what’s new? Didn’t you have that big conference thing a couple days ago?”

 

Lexa nodded. “I spoke to representatives from Harvard, Princeton, Duke, and Vanderbilt. They had some very intriguing scholarship opportunities, so I think I’ll concentrate my efforts there.”

 

Lincoln choked on his soda, coughing as he spluttered in laughter. “Remember when you used to speak like a normal human being?” he cackled. “Damn, Lex, you have two more years. I have faith in your excessive professionalism.”

 

Anya’s door slammed close as she plodded into the room, rubbing her eyes after a late bar shift the night before. Looking up from pulling her hair into a ponytail, she gave Lincoln a quick side wave and poured herself a cup of coffee. “You all are far too awake for teenagers,” she mumbled.

 

Lincoln stretched, pulling his arm across his chest. “It’s all the Wheaties. And my mom’s apple pie of course.” Anya raised an eyebrow and returned to her mug.

 

Lexa checked her watch and felt a lump rise in her throat. This was the first start of the school year where she wouldn’t be meeting Costia at the front door, seeing that gleamingsmile and feeling her arms around her, inevitably cloaked in some bohemian knit sweater. Costia grabbing her by the back of the neck and not caring what anyone around them thought. Lexa cleared her throat sharply and Anya’s eyes met hers.

 

“We should go,” she said, brushing by her sister as she grabbed her bag and returned to the front door. Anya dropped her mug on the counter and picked up her keys from the hook.

 

“Giant nerd, so excited for class that she can’t contain herself.” She led the way out the front door, Lincoln playfully jostling Lexa to be first out the door.

* * *

 

Octavia wasn’t nervous for her first day at school. Nervous wasn’t the right word. Maybe batshit terrified, uncontrollably excited, and slightly nauseated. The uniform wasn’t half bad at least, and she’d be able to make a few necessary changes to make the perfect first impression once she was a safe distance from Bellamy, and her hair was on point. Still, pulling up to the massive, modern complex of Ark Academy, Octavia Blake was more scared than she’d been in a very long time.

 

Bellamy was continuing on what felt like the fourth hour of a long list of rules, guidelines, and “Ark survival skills,” as he’d called it. Easing into a parking space, he turned to Octavia. “And keep away from the football team. All of them.”

 

“Quite the self-hating football star, aren’t we, Bell?” She smirked, stepping out of the car and pulling her bag over her shoulder.

 

“You know what I mean,” he said. “Look, I just want you to be safe and learn and—“

 

“You are literally turning into Mom.” She turned to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Relax. I’m not a little kid anymore.”

 

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” He started walking to the front door, eventually running into Clarke, Miller, Monty, and Jasper standing in a cluster. Clarke’s eyes grew wide as she spotted Octavia.

 

“O!” she yelled, sprinting at her in a hug that almost knocked the younger girl flat on her ass. She embraced her childhood friend, making eye contact with a thoroughly amused Bellamy as she did. “It’s been forever. I saw you for what, all of three days last summer?”

 

“When was she here last summer?” An indignant Jasper punched Bellamy in the arm, probably hurting himself more than Bellamy. “What the hell, Blake?”

 

Octavia laughed, pulling back from Clarke. “Finally free of the boarding school prison,” she said. “But damn, Griffin, when’d you get so hot?”

 

Clarke rolled her eyes, smoothing out her shirt and pulling on the hem of her skirt. “These uniforms, they’re all the rage nowadays. Just do wonders.” Octavia grinned, amused by the sight of the girl who used to push Bellamy’s face into the mud clad in a skirt with matching tie.

 

Octavia glanced over the rest of the group, from Jasper nervously adjusting his own tie to Miller’s vacant stare over Monty’s head. “Where’s your other friend, the girl with the crutches?” An awkwardly silence descended over the group, and Bellamy in particular became exceedingly interested in his shoes. “I’m missing something, aren’t I?” she said, her nausea becoming slightly more pronounced.

 

“Raven’s inside, talking to the principal,” Monty said, finally breaking the silence after a few moments.

 

“Scholarship stuff,” Clarke continued, shooting Octavia a look that essentially read, _I’ll explain later._

Octavia uneasily nodded. “Cool.” She hiked her bag higher up on her shoulder, turning her eyes to the front door, where the previous stream of entering students had thinned out. “So I don’t know much about this school, but I’m guessing that getting to class on time is generally the move?”

 

“Oh shit.” Clarke cast her eyes in the same direction, before throwing her arm around Octavia’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t want the new eye candy to be late on her first day of school.”

 

“Hey!” Bellamy barked. Clarke laughed, leading the group up the incline to the front door.

* * *

Class was safe. Class was familiar. Even more conveniently, Chem lab didn’t require Raven to move much, and her crutches could go largely unnoticed by those who hadn’t previously paid her much attention. Not that there were too many. Raven wasn’t a particularly quiet individual, and a high-profile track star at the top of most of her classes (damn Kyle Wick) was hard to ignore. Plus she was hot and she knew it.

 

Carefully lowering herself to eye level as she poured NaOH into a test tube (eye on the meniscus, of course), Raven tuned Dr. Tsing back in, currently reprimanding Jasper for a lengthy exposition on the chemistry equipment best used for…intoxicating instruments. Chastised, Jasper returned to his stool next to Raven, nearly bumping her arm as he dropped his elbows dramatically onto the counter.

 

“Damn it, Jordan! This isn’t water I’m working with.” Raven placed the beaker with the remnants of the fluid back down before safely placing the test tube in a rack.

 

“I’m bored,” Jasper groaned, glancing over the lab write-up for the day. “When do we get to make things blow up?”

 

Raven grinned. “You know I’d be up for that just as much as you. Chem club?”

 

“Raven Reyes, joining an academic club?” Jasper turned to Raven, genuine curiosity on his face. “I thought your thing was being too brilliant and laid back for the rest of us, never needing any help or extracurricular academic supplements.”

 

“Oh fuck off,” she said, eyes back down on the write-up. “It’s just part of the new scholarship deal.”

 

“Right, that shit.” Jasper reached down to grab the rest of the necessary equipment from underneath the counter. Raven had gained a special appreciation for Jasper over the past few months. Maybe it was the fact that he was stoned 60% of the time, but he was the one group member who had been the least awkward since the accident. On top of this, he was absolutely brilliant, and probably the best lab partner she could’ve asked for. She’d gotten lucky in that way, taking physics the year before because, as she’d put it to her advisor, ‘there’s no way in hell that you’re stopping me from properly studying fluid dynamics if and when I want to.’ Besides, chem was easy, and it’d allow her more time to figure out these new scholarship requirements.

 

The academic club thing was going to be pretty easy. They had a chemistry club, and, if Jaha really wanted her to start her own club, she sure as hell wouldn’t mind some sort of mechanics/people who also like to blow shit up society. The volunteering deal was going to be a bit more challenging, particularly with limitations, but Clarke had mentioned some sort of abstract thing she’d cooked up with some chick she’d met at the Young Leaders conference who went to Three Rivers, and, as Raven could clearly tell from Clarke’s tone, was hot as all hell.

 

Startled out of her musings by Jasper attempting to light the lab instructions on fire with the Bunsen burner, Raven grabbed her partner’s elbow, handing him a clean beaker. “Measure. Now.”

* * *

 

If excessive teen angst wasn’t itself enough to make Clarke hate _The Catcher in the Rye,_ her cheating, scumbag ex’s name on the inside cover of the book she’d been assigned definitely helped. Finn fucking Collins. The only good thing to come out of that relationship, other than some regrettably good sex, was her friendship with Raven. The two had met years before, when Abby had decided that Clarke needed some sort of outlet before she painted all of the walls in their house and forced her to do middle school track, but they’d maintained more of a casual friendship, a text here or there and shared shots at parties. When Raven had gone abroad for the first semester of Clarke’s freshman year, Bellamy had introduced Clarke to Finn Collins, his confident, philosophy-spouting teammate, largely in an attempt to keep him away from Octavia as she visited for her allotted two weeks a year.

 

Finn had been smart, creative, and damn if that boy didn’t know what he was doing in bed. Because Raven was only a casual friend and enough degrees of separation from the rest of the group, no one had any clue that Finn was taken. So when Raven returned second semester to find Clarke and Finn sloppily making out against his locker, there was a fair amount of explaining to be done. Thank god for Raven’s realistic nature. It wasn’t exactly levelheadedness or anything, as Raven had keyed Finn’s brand-new Benz and made sure to detail every aspect of his dick at length (or lack thereof) on a set of flyers, but she understood that Clarke was a victim in this as well. So, in the best _John Tucker Must Die_ state of mind, the two had become best friends, bonding over Finn’s douchey, pretentious need to quote Nietzsche at length, a shared love of mint chocolate chip ice cream, and, admittedly, a few nights of unadulterated sobbing. But Clarke had come out of the whole fiasco with a loyal as hell, ride or die friend, and Finn Collins had transferred, though Clarke couldn’t be sure whether it was more from fear of Bellamy or Raven.

 

Turning her attention back to her teacher, Clarke took the syllabus passed back to her by John Murphy, who was repeating junior year AP Language due to pure apathy. Murphy, something of a modern embodiment of Holden Caulfield, always seemed to be hungover, likely on some sort of $300 scotch nicked from his always absent father’s liquor cabinet. “Guess it’s you and me, Griffin,” he drawled, hooded eyes uncomfortably fixed on her lips. Though Clarke had never really understood the appeal, Murphy was one of Bellamy’s oldest friends, indicating to her that there was likely something below the surface of uncaring, entitled snark.

 

Clarke sighed, running her eyes over the reading list and project dates, before beginning a sketch that took on some unnervingly high cheekbones and familiar eyes before she threw in a handlebar mustache and a monocle. She did have to talk to Jaha, though, and she pulled out her phone under the desk, scrolling through her contacts until she got to ‘Lexa Heda.’ Employing her well-practiced method of alternating between making eye contact with the teacher and making sure that she wasn’t typing utter nonsense, Clarke managed a quick, “Hey. Talking to Jaha later today. Will keep you posted.” She considered a smiley face or random eggplant emoji at the end, but thought better of it. She hit send, leaving her phone on her leg just in case anyone needed to reach her.

 

At the end of class (still with no return text), Clarke stood up and dropped her phone into her bag, almost knocking over a clearly lost Octavia Blake, who had obviously managed to rearrange her uniform to her liking, the first few buttons of her shirt undone and her tie hanging loosely around her neck. “Nice uniform,” Clarke said. Octavia looked up, realizing who it was.

 

“I’m still in dress code. This was totally allowed at Lantai.” Clarke raised an eyebrow. “Boarding school.”

 

“Ah. 90s Britney all the rage there?” Octavia playfully punched Clarke on the arm.

 

“Shut up. There’s no way in hell you didn’t roll that skirt at least three times.”

 

Clarke shrugged.“You just have to be subtle with the game. You look incredibly lost, by the way.”

 

Octavia laughed, pulling her schedule out of her bag. “Am I that obvious?” She furrowed her brow, opening up the crumpled sheet of paper. “OK, so I have a free period and then Calc before cross country tryouts.” Seeing Clarke’s confusion about the math level, she smirked. “It is possible to be both smart and hot, Clarke.”

 

Clarke rolled her eyes. Octavia was gonna be one hell of a handful for Bellamy, but it would be nice for him to be unleashing his overprotective brotherly instincts on someone other than Clarke for once. Raven had escaped the brunt of it lately, Bell’s primary interactions with her being laced with guilt and something else that Clarke couldn’t really place properly. “So what’s the question?”

 

“I need to go talk to my guidance counselor,” Octavia said. “It says B building, office 326. This is B building. I have no clue where 326 is.”

 

“Well, you’re in luck.” Clarke grabbed the schedule from Octavia and started walking away, the younger girl following behind her. “I TA for freshmen art this period, but Ms. Byrne gave me the day off. They’re largely going over logistic stuff, so I’m useless. I shall be your guide, young Blake.”

 

“You better not make that name a thing,” Octavia said, the most menacing note in her voice that she could manage.

 

Clarke laughed.“I take that as a challenge.”

* * *

 

Bellamy entered the locker room about halfway through practice. Coach Kane had noticed some issue with under-inflated footballs or something and had sent Bellamy, who sure as hell did not need a refresher on route running, to pick up a couple more. He didn’t mind, as it was about 90 degrees outside and Miller seemed to be feeling it, his normally pinpoint-accurate throws having knocked Bellamy in the back of the head three times already.

 

Swinging Kane’s keys around his finger, Bellamy walked through the rows of lockers, eventually unlocking the coach’s door and locating a ball bag. He was admittedly exhausted, having overloaded his senior year schedule a bit more than necessary. With his football scholarship to USC already in hand, Bellamy could’ve taken woodshop and advanced fingerpainting and graduated with more than enough credits and a solid college plan, but it wasn’t in his nature. Agreeing to TA for Latin might have been another poor choice, he admitted to himself as he headed out, locking the door behind him.

 

He stopped at the water fountain, chugging what felt like a gallon of icy cold water before splashing more on his face. Leaning down to pick up the balls again, he heard a banging sound from the senior locker room behind him. Bag still in hand, he slowly and carefully walked to the door. Another crash and some heavy breathing sounded through the wood, and Bellamy set his jaw and swung the door open.

 

“Jesus, Atom,” he yelled, greeted by the sight of his teammate’s bare back coated in sweat, with some girl’s legs wrapped around his waist. It was the third time Bellamy had been forced to intervene in the linebacker’s escapades, and hell if he was gonna cover for him this time—HOLY SHIT THAT WAS HIS SISTER.

 

A wide-eyed Octavia Blake, still thankfully in her track clothes, let out a squeak as Atom swung around, leaving her crashing to the bench below. “Bell!” Her voice was filled with a mix of horror and rage, and she scrambled onto her feet as Atom desperately searched for his jersey while slowly backing away from the advancing Bellamy.

 

Octavia stepped in front of her brother, and Bellamy forced his eyes down onto his disheveled younger sister, hair in disarray, with a line of hickeys forming down her neck. “You need to stop,” she said, placing a hand on his arm. Shaking it off, he attempted to push past her, but she moved with him as Atom seemed to search for any sort of exit. “Bellamy!”

 

“Octavia, I swear to god. Get the hell out of my way.” At this, she pushed him backwards with surprising force.

 

“I am not a little kid. I don’t need you parenting me,” she said. Atom looked severely uncomfortable, but stared at Bellamy and attempted to square his shoulders..

 

“What happened to cross country tryouts?” Bellamy nearly spat, hands clenching even as the desire to charge past his sister and rearrange Atom’s face was slowly subsiding.

 

“I guess I just ran fast enough that I had time for other extracurricular activities,” Octavia replied, voice coated in sarcasm. “I made the fucking team, Bell. I stopped by your practice to tell you and ran into Atom.”

 

“And you just felt the need to straddle him as an introduction?”

 

“OK, that’s enough.” She grabbed her discarded windbreaker from the floor and stormed past him, slamming the door as she went. Bellamy turned to Atom.

 

“If you think this is fucking over, you’re beyond wrong. Get the hell out to the field.” As Atom made to walk towards him, he held up a hand. “Wait a couple minutes. I don’t want you anywhere near my sister.” With that, he turned and left the room, balls forgotten.

 

A quick jog later, he’d caught up to Octavia as she stormed across the grass towards the parking lot. “And where were you going?”

 

She spun around, tears of anger streaming down her face. “Why the hell would I tell you?” she hissed. “It’s not like you’d believe me anyways.”

 

“I promised Mom I’d look out for you. That’s all I was doing.”

 

“You’re not Dad!” Octavia screamed this loudly enough that the field hockey team jogging around the nearby field stopped momentarily to stare at them. Bellamy took a few steps towards her. “Don’t.” He stopped, glancing nervously over to the football field.

 

“I’ll call Clarke for a ride. Go hit someone in a constructive way.” With that, she marched off in the other direction, still shaking with tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, so that was longer. And angstier. But there it is. Will Octavia forgive Bellamy? Why does Atom have such a stupid name? And does Clarke’s thirst have any bounds? Who knows (I don’t)? Comments are always appreciated. Peace and blessings, and a happy Pinot Noir to you all.
> 
> PS. Credit again to Viridicus for reading this. Go check their fics out too


	3. Last Friday Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where they all get drunk and Lexa is an awkward dork. The long-awaited entrance of Party Girl Clarke Griffin. Also featuring “I’m 16 but I don’t know how to text properly” Lexa Heda and “Tequila Cowboy” Octavia Blake.

The end result of Bellamy and Octavia’s locker room blowout was that Clarke ended up making an extra stop by the Blakes’ on the way to school every morning that week. It seemed as if Bellamy hadn’t told Mrs. Blake yet, and, as Octavia put it, she was “happy that Octavia was friends with as good an influence as that Clarke Griffin.” Clarke had lost her shit at this one, but made sure to wave in the most cheery, well-behaved manner that she could as Octavia walked to the car. 

 

“I thought she was gone this weekend,” Clarke asked, waiting while Octavia proceeded to buckle herself in and ‘fix’ her uniform.

 

“Oh, she is. Leaving around noon, thank fucking God.” Octavia finally settled and Clarke eased the car in reverse out of the Blakes’ driveway.

 

“So it’s still on?”

 

“Hell yeah!” Octavia fiddled with the radio until she hit the opening notes of Taylor Swift’s ‘Wonderland,’ at which point she cranked the volume so high that Clarke could feel the bass in her stomach. “He’d already told enough people that it’d be awkward to cancel,” she said, shouting over the music as she waved her hand out of the window. “Besides, he’s got a reputation to keep up.”

 

Mrs. Blake was gone generally half of the weekends every month at some conference or another, and so Bellamy had began to take advantage of this starting around his sophomore year. By this point, Blake parties were legendary, although they’d been on a hiatus over the summer. Bellamy had been strangely reclusive and private most of the time, and most of Clarke’s sightings of him had been on his daily conditioning runs.

 

They continued the rest of the drive talking about the gossip from the first week of school, Octavia’s thoughts on Ark in general, and her excitement for the first Cross Country meet in a couple weeks. Octavia spent most of the time absentmindedly drumming her fingers in rhythm on the windowsill, smiling at the warm wind on her face as if she hadn’t felt fresh air her whole life.

 

Clarke pulled into the parking lot right behind Raven’s beat up, rusted old truck, taking the parking space to her right. Giving Raven an extra second for comfort before she got out of the car (earning her yet another quizzical look from Octavia at her delay), Clarke walked around as her friend carefully pushed herself out. It would’ve made sense to switch to a car closer to the ground, and Clarke wasn’t sure whether Raven hadn’t because she couldn’t afford it, or because she simply refused to acknowledge that her capabilities had changed. Raven’s truck was her baby; the thing had over 200,000 miles on the odometer and a bumper that threatened to fall off every day, but Raven’s pure mechanical genius kept it running smoothly. However, it was hard to watch her friend struggle to safely transfer her weight onto her crutches every morning.

 

“Sup Griffin?” Safe and secured, Raven pulled her backpack out of the back seat as Clarke watched. “I see you’ve picked up a permanent passenger.”

 

“Just doing it to spend more time with you, Raven,” Octavia teased, following the two older girls as they headed towards the school.

 

“Is Bell really being that much of an ass?” Raven asked. Clarke had also been a bit shocked at Octavia’s (likely slightly hyperbolic) account of the epic showdown in the senior locker room, and she had a good sense that it was due to Bellamy’s pure intimidation factor that it hadn’t spread much beyond their immediate friend group. Octavia seemed to find it simultaneously hilarious and infuriating, and Clarke was concerned about what would happen if Atom showed up at the Blakes’ that night.

 

“He seems to think that being the only guy in the house makes him my dad.” Octavia popped in a piece of gum, releasing an overly dramatic sigh. “I already have one deadbeat, useless dad in my life. I don’t need a second.”

 

Clarke’s hand protectively went to Octavia’s shoulder. She knew how much their parents’ divorce had hit Bellamy, and she could only imagine that it had been worse for Octavia, alone at boarding school.

 

“Whatever. Clarke’s got my back, and Bellamy’s a lot easier to deal with a few shots in.” Octavia whirled around and dramatically raised her hands. “Just call me the Tequila Cowboy.” Raven and Clarke shared a knowing glance as Octavia pranced off towards school.

 

“What’s our level of responsibility for her?” Raven asked.

 

“I’d say keep her from vomiting or having sex in Bellamy’s bed, and we’re safe.”

* * *

 It had been four days, and Lexa still hadn’t responded to Clarke’s text. In her mind, this wasn’t odd. Clarke hadn’t asked her a direct question and, to use a sports colloquialism, the ‘ball was in her court,’ funding-wise. Still, Lexa found herself staring at the single line under ‘Clarke Griffin’ for an inordinateamount of time as she waited for Anya to pick her up after school. Cross country practice had gone a bit longer than usual, and so Lincoln was already sitting on the steps at the front of the school as she walked up.

 

“Another ten-miler?” he asked, looking up from the small sketchbook in his hands and placing the pencil behind his ear.

 

“And a couple 400s. Race pace.”

 

Lincoln whistled softly in response. “Coach Gustus is really gunning for state champs this year, huh?” He closed the book and stuck it into his gym bag, standing up with a slight wince.

 

“What happened there?” Lincoln was still yet to commit to any school for football, and scholarships were still on the line. Any injury could be life-changing at this point, as Indra was sure to remind him every day before school.

 

“Nyko forgot that the red shirt meant no tackling. Hit me a bit hard on the hip. Nothing serious though.” Lexa raised an eyebrow. “I mean it! Trainer just said I need to ice it for a bit.”

 

“You better not let your mom see that,” Lexa said, watching as Anya’s car pulled up towards them. “She may generally be of the ‘rub some dirt in it’ type, but not with college on the line.”

 

Lincoln didn’t answer as he threw his bag into Anya’s back seat and climbed in after. Lexa took the front, shoving Anya’s own athletic bag to the side with her foot as wrinkled her nose at the smell.

 

Glaring at Lexa’s reaction, Anya pulled away from the school. “Do you two even smell yourselves? At least one of us is making money off of this.” Lexa flipped the radio to a classic rock station before pulling out her phone again and continuing her staring contest with Clarke Griffin’s name.

* * *

 

The party was already going as Raven and Clarke pulled up to Bellamy’s house. Cars that Raven recognized as Monty’s, Jasper’s, Murphy’s, and Miller’s filled the driveway, with several others parked further down the street. Clarke’s customary spot was open, and Raven appreciated the lower level of the car as Clarke handed her the crutches from the back seat.

 

Not even bothering to knock, Clarke swung the door open ahead of Raven, the heavy bass of some Taylor Swift remix pumping through the open frame. Raven followed Clarke in and was immediately greeted by the smell of cheap alcohol and what was surely Jasper’s handiwork, once again from the den. Bellamy, standing in the kitchen doorframe with Miller, caught sight of them, hugging them both before sweeping his hand towards the bottle-covered counter with an airy, “What’s mine is yours.”

 

Raven poured herself a likely dangerous tequila sunrise, wrinkling her nose at the smell before tossing back as much as she could handle in a single gulp. Clarke, more of a shots girl, had two empty shot glasses and an open bottle of vodka in front of her by the time Raven looked back over. Raven grinned. “Are we seeing party animal Clarke Griffin tonight?” Clarke responded by pouring two more shots, passing one to Raven, who downed it with a slight grimace.

 

Octavia burst into the room a moment later, carrying a fifth of Smirnoff in one hand. She took a pull, let out a sharp breath, and flung her arms around Raven’s and Clarke’s neck, almost knocking Raven over. “ _We’re back, bitches_!” Clarke took the bottle from Octavia with a laugh before grabbing another shot glass and pouring one for each.

 

Three shots and another sunrise later, Raven was tipsy. No, she was big enough to admit it: she was drunk. Clarke was in party animal mode, shrieking as she sunk the final cup in a game of beer pong against Monty and Jasper. Hugging her partner Miller, she downed her own mixed drink before calling for challengers for ‘The Table Queen.’ Octavia seemed to take this as a dare, climbing onto the dining room table and beckoning for Clarke to join her in a dance.

 

Raven decided it was up to her to find Bellamy before he discovered this himself and attempted to ground Octavia for the rest of her life. She realized quickly that crutches were even harder to manage while drunk, and felt herself losing balance at the base of the stairs.

 

“Woah there.” A strong set of arms caught her, and Bellamy pulled her back up. He’d clearly been drinking; his eyes were slightly glazed over and the unmistakable scent of rum was on his breath. They stood there for a moment too long before Bellamy wordlessly picked her up and carried her up the stairs.

 

The second they were around the corner and out of sight from the party downstairs, Bellamy whirled around and pressed Raven against the wall. She let out a small squeak as he repositioned her, hitching her thighs up over his arms before sloppily pressing his mouth against hers. It took Raven a moment to take control of the kiss, but Bellamy quickly slipped back into old habits.

 

Bellamy was a good kisser, and Raven certainly did not mind the fact that his football conditioning gave him the strength to hold her up against the wall like this. Her knee was starting to bother her a bit, but the alcohol and the general headiness of her situation allowed her to forget it as Bellamy’s right hand migrated towards her ass.

 

“Bell,” she gasped, gripping his curls tighter as he moved to kiss her neck. He pulled back for a moment, a look of concern on his face. Raven rolled her eyes and pulled him in roughly, her right hand roaming from the back of his neck to the bottom of his shirt. Sliding underneath the fabric, she rested her hand on his defined abs before detaching her face for a moment to catch a breath. “I think it might be time to move elsewhere.”

 

Bellamy grinned in response, once again hitching her up slightly higher as he moved down the hall, pushing open the door of his bedroom with one hand.

* * *

 

Perhaps Clarke should’ve saved the table dancing for earlier in the party, not when half of the senior class was present to see her dirty dancing with Bellamy Blake’s younger sister. Admittedly, many of them were predisposed with other activities; a good two thirds of the bottles were empty and the rest were at least half gone, so sloppy making out in darkened corners had become the norm. Still, she had to thank god Bellamy was not there as a very drunken Octavia ground her ass up against her.

 

Clarke, currently the keeper of the fifth the two had been sharing all night, took another swig and scanned the crowd for Raven. It had been a long time since her friend had been any sort of drunk, and her tolerance was sure to have shifted since she was no longer in perpetual training for track season. “O!”

 

Octavia spun around, a goofy grin on her face, placing one hand on Clarke’s shoulder and reaching for the fifth with the other. Clarke held it back for a second, prompting a pout from the other girl. “Have you seen Raven?”

 

The younger Blake shook her head, managing to snatch the bottle from Clarke as she once again took a look around. “I’ve been a bit busy being the life of the party,” she yelled, letting out a whoop, which was answered likewise by their audience.

 

As Octavia swayed, Clarke decided it was time to move from a less elevated surface to a level at which bathrooms were more easily accessible. She jumped off and pulled Octavia with her, prompting a groan from Jasper in particular. Octavia gave a particularly devilish smile to Jasper before Clarke dragged her back to the kitchen. The truly responsible move at this moment would have been to pour them both glasses of water and try to clear the party out (as its host seemed to be MIA), but Clarke Griffin was not feeling particularly responsible. Pouring another pair of shots, Clarke and Octavia attempted some sort of muddled toast that sounded vaguely like the Ark Academy alma mater before the alcohol once again burned her throat.

 

At this point, Clarke felt completely prepared to make bad decisions, and, rather than making eye contact with Bellamy’s teammate, leaned back against the counter and pulled out her phone.

* * *

 

The first text message didn’t even really draw Lexa’s attention. Few people had her number, so it was likely either Lincoln asking for the homework assignment for one class, Nyko awkwardly continuing to hit on her, or Anya letting her know that she was leaving for work. None of these possibilities were important enough to draw her away from her Calc homework.

 

The next three buzzes in a row, however, were enough to elicit an exasperated sigh from her as she dropped her pencil and rolled her desk chair over to the corner on which her phone sat. Four messages from…Clarke Griffin? Lexa’s stomach turned slightly as she unlocked the phone screen, revealing what she could only describe as “slightly educated gibberish.”

 

 **Clarke Griffin:** Lexa

 **Clarke Griffin:** LEXAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 **Clarke Griffin** : Okk. You nvr textd bcak

 **Clarke Griffin** : Em not hyp k?

 

Lexa blinked twice before rubbing her eyes to make sure that three straight hours of studying wasn’t making her see things. Another two messages shot up onto the screen a moment later.

 

 **Clarke Griffin** : Leaxaaaaaa

 **Clarke Griffin** : Aer awake

 

She’d only met Clarke once before, but she was pretty sure that she could tell when someone was drunk. Drunk Clarke Griffin. Drunk Clarke Griffin drunk texting her, about (as far as she could tell) why she hadn’t texted her back. It was funny, as Lexa had been wondering the same thing pretty much all day, but had felt too awkward to do anything about it.

 

Lexa’s right thumb slipped, placing an inadvertent “i” onto the keyboard. She immediately deleted it, but was met with another text.

 

 **Clarke Griffin** : AWAKE

 **Clarke Griffin:** Saw tat. You wait

 

Suddenly, Lexa’s phone began to continuously vibrate, and she was filled with the immediate urge to toss it across the room and sit as far back on her bed as she possibly could. Clarke Griffin was calling her. Drunk Clarke Griffin was calling her. Lexa stared dumbly at the phone for a good minute until the vibrating finally stopped, leaving her with a missed call notification. She let out a sigh of relief before the phone began to ring again. Realizing there was no escape, Lexa cautiously answered.

 

“Hello?”

 

“LEXAAA!” Clarke’s voice came through loud and garbled, as if she was holding her own phone far too closely to her mouth. In the background, she could hear the sounds of some remixed Top 40 hit, mingled with shouts and clinking glasses. “You never texted me back. Whyyyy?” Clarke’s words, slurred together, were interrupted as she seemed to turn around to shout at someone.

 

“Um.”

 

“What?” Clarke, again too loud, seemed unlikely to give up, and her obvious inebriation only added to her clearly determined and brash nature.

 

“I just…hadn’t heard anything from you regarding further action,” Lexa mumbled.

 

“Wowwwwwwwwwwww. Lex, it’s like way too late and everything’s way too drunk to talk like that.” Clarke laughed, and Lexa’s stomach jumped. “Here’s the thing. Jaha—“ She hiccupped. “Jaha wants specifics. So like you and I should meet and we can bang…” She stopped again for a moment, and Lexa’s eyes grew wide. “Bang out the details.” Clarke snorted. “That sounded funny at first.”

 

Lexa turned to her computer and opened up her calendar. It seemed almost pointless to plan something with Clarke in this state, but the blonde would likely keep calling her until they at least came up with something tentative. “How soon were you thinking?”

 

“Ummmm…tomorrow! S’Saturday and I have Saturdays. Like free. Saturday!” Lexa heard a crashing sound in the background, once again punctuated by Clarke’s clear and unrestrained laughter. “Sorry. Monty tried to jump onto the pong table and s’bad.”

 

Invitationals hadn’t started up yet, so Lexa’s Saturday was admittedly open, other than a scheduled eight-mile run. “That would be acceptable with my schedule. How about…10 AM?”

 

“Overestimate a bit there,” Clarke said, seemingly stifling another hiccup. “I’m…11. Give me 11. Starbucks on Third?”

 

Lexa nodded, adding it to her calendar.

 

“Lexa?”

 

And realized that nods did not communicate via phone properly. “Yes, that works for me. Tomorrow, then?”

 

“Yeahhhhh. Yes. Yes. No blazers this time though.” As Lexa pulled the phone away from her ear, she heard Clarke call out, “Octavia, stay away from the balcony!”

 

Lexa placed the phone face down on her desk, releasing a deep breath. Drunk Clarke Griffin. Drunk, laughing Clarke Griffin. Drunk Clarke Griffin who seemingly cared enough about this project to drunkenly call her co-planner at 1:30 AM while wasted. Lexa figured there could be worse people to work with and jotted down a few notes on a nearby legal pad, including a reminder to bring along lots of Advil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know there wasn’t much Lexa last chapter and I apologize, but I’m trying to establish all of the Arkers together, and the Grounders’ turn shall be coming very soon. Oh and trust me, there will be more drunk Clarke in the future. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Oh and thanks to Viridicus for reading!!! Go read their stuff.


	4. Coffee's for Closers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Clarke is thirsty, Lexa is awkward, and Raven is the best...oh wait that's my whole fic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever felt second-hand embarrassment while writing a fic? I have. As promised, more (C)Lexa. Enjoy!

Raven snapped awake at the sound of a crash from the floor below. She was immediately aware of three facts: 1) she was naked; 2) she was in Bellamy’s bed; and 3) it felt like a jackhammer was attempting to drill through her skull. Pushing herself up onto her elbows and squinting at the sunlight filtering through the window shades, she looked to her right to see Bellamy’s sleeping, also naked form next to her.

 

A yelp that she identified as Clarke’s came from downstairs, followed by a weak call of “Raven?” After a few unsuccessful nudges with her elbow, Raven turned onto her side and gave Bellamy a stronger shove than she’d planned, sending him crashing to the floor below.

 

“Wahhhhdafuck?” Bellamy pushed himself up, curls falling in front of his eyes as he blinked at her blearily.

 

“Clothes,” Raven hissed. Bellamy shook his head a couple times before sitting up fully, rubbing his eyes, and locating his boxer shorts in a pile with Raven’s bra from the night before. Catching it, she noticed her tank top and underwear stuck underneath the door. “Underwear would help too, Bell.”

 

His own boxers pulled on, Bellamy stood up, eventually tossing the rest of her clothes at Raven. Through a combination of pure will and abdominal muscles, Raven managed to get dressed as Bellamy pulled on a tshirt and carefully peered around the door. He stepped back in and closed the door as quietly as an incredibly hungover guy could.

 

“Clarke is at the foot of the stairs,” he whispered.

 

Raven rolled her eyes. “No shit, Sherlock. Why the hell do you think I woke you up so early?” It was 10:30 on a Saturday, and, in the past, Raven would have been up around 6 AM for training or a race. In the last few months, however, she’d started lounging around until noon or one in the afternoon, and Bellamy was known to sleep through the day after a late night party.

 

“So…what do we do?” In the months before Raven’s accident, it’d been easy enough for her to sneak downstairs or climb out a window to cover up this…whatever the hell was going on. This was new territory for the two of them, however, and hungover as hell was probably not the best state of mind in which to navigate it.

 

“She’s probably cleaning up whatever she just broke. Are my crutches still downstairs?” Bellamy nodded. “OK, then just get me downstairs and drop me on a couch or something. But like move. Now.”

 

Bellamy picked her up and somehow managed to get down the stairs with only a slight creak. He was depositing Raven unceremoniously on a couch as Clarke rounded the corner.

 

“Bell, hey. I broke a glass.” She held up a dustpan full of shards. “Sorry bout that.”

 

“Hey, no worries,” Bellamy said, running his fingers through his hair as he always did when he was nervous. Raven, doing her best to pretend to be asleep, shifted down on the too-small couch until her head fell between two pillows.

 

“Have you seen Raven? I kind of lost track of her last night at a certain point.”

 

“Uh, I think she’s on a couch or something.” Bellamy turned and pointed at her crutches, lying in a pile by the stairs. “She’s not upstairs, I guess.”

 

Bellamy was a shitty liar, and Raven didn’t trust him to keep this going for much longer, so she pushed herself up in her best bleary-eyed impression of just having woken up (admittedly helped by her genuine hangover) and gave Clarke a weak wave. “Hey.”

 

“Well, there’s one,” Clarke said, walking back into the kitchen and scanning the adjoining living room. Bellamy delivered Raven’s crutches to her, letting out a sigh of relief as he helped her up and led her into the foyer. “Now where’s the Tequila Cowboy?”

 

Raven made her way into the living room, immediately spotting Octavia asleep on a couch with Jasper, her head resting on his chest and a look of genuine euphoria on his face. “Found her.”

 

Bellamy walked over, and Raven held a hand out as she saw the color rising in his face. “It’s Jay, Bell. I seriously doubt anything happened.”

 

Clarke, scrolling through her phone, let out a sudden gasp. “Oh shit.”

 

“What’s up?” As Bellamy oh so delicately poked Jasper in the eye, Raven headed over to Clarke.

 

“I called her.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Lexa.”

 

“Conference girl?” Raven triumphantly cackled at Clarke’s embarrassed nod. “I knew it! I knew you had it bad, Griffin.”

 

Clarke shook her head. “I totally made plans with her today. Holy shit these texts. Wow. Wow.”

 

“I mean, it has been a while, right?” Raven swore Clarke would have pushed her off her crutches if not for the table between them.

 

“It’s just coffee. We have to plan that project thing.”

 

“Yes, the coffee plans that you made while about two shots away from blackout after some thirsty as fuck text messages…or so I’m assuming.” She made a quick grab for Clarke’s phone, hindered once again by the table.

 

Clarke let out a beleaguered sigh. “I can’t go home and let my mom see me like this. Bell?” Bellamy whirled around from his sister-waking mission. “Can I borrow a sweatshirt or something? I’m pretty sure this top doesn’t send the right message.”

 

“Um, yeah it does,” Raven said. “Sheer perfectly says that you want to mount her right there in the restaurant.” Clarke shot Raven a death glare as Bellamy finally succeeded in rousing Octavia and was rewarded with a sharp jab in the arm.

 

“Sounds. Stop.” Octavia pushed herself off Jasper as Bellamy plodded up the stairs, rubbing his arm. She picked up a nearby glass, wrinkled her nose, and  headed over to the sink to find a fresh glass to fill with water.

 

“And how’s the Tequila Cowboy this morning?” Clarke asked, obviously grateful for the opportunity to change the subject.

 

Octavia covered her mouth. “Please do not say tequila anywhere ever again.” She downed the glass of water in a single gulp before immediately pouring another. “What are you two cackling about?”

 

“Clarke’s got a date,” Raven said, ducking the Solo cup that Clarke chucked her way.

 

“I’m just meeting that girl from the conference to make plans for that community service project between Ark and Three Rivers. Nothing big.” Clarke gave Bellamy a smile and a silent ‘thank you’ as she accepted a huge USC sweatshirt from him.

 

“Going dressed like that?” Octavia eyed Clarke up and down, snarky even as she struggled to stay upright.

 

“It’s a Saturday morning. I doubt she’s gonna be particularly dressed up either.” Clarke grabbed her keys off the counter and headed for the door as Raven followed, turning her head to give Bellamy a quick smile as they went.

* * *

 

Lexa had always been prompt, but maybe half an hour early was pushing it, especially with Clarke’s condition the night before. Still, she’d woken up at 8, had time to print and carefully color code her ideas, plans, contact lists, and the like, and been set to go by about 9:30. Another forty-five minutes of fussing with her outfit and hair had left her at 10:15, when she’d finally given up and walked over to the Starbucks, because sometimes it really did get crowded and it’d certainly be irresponsible on Lexa’s part to leave them without a proper place to confer.

 

At this point, she’d drunk her way through three cups of green tea, the clock was edging towards 11:15, and Clarke was nowhere to be found. Lexa hated tardiness; she always operated under a strict schedule, and there was no extra space in her day. She’d put off a morning run for this (and she truly hated afternoon and evening runs), and was supposed to meet Lincoln for a calculus study session around 3. She stood up to grab a fourth cup and immediately caught sight of a disheveled and breathless Clarke Griffin bursting through the door.

 

“I am so sorry,” she said, pulling her bag up over her shoulder. “I woke up like half an hour ago, I had to drop my friend off at home, and then the light was hitting the leaves in just the right way and I had to get a reference picture and just…I am so sorry.”

 

Lexa smiled, probably a bit too enthusiastically. “Oh, no worries at all. I was running a bit late myself. Just about to grab a drink.” Working carefully to hide the already used cup in her hand, she walked up to the counter and handed it to the cashier as Clarke rummaged in her bag.

 

After Clarke had picked up her overly complicated drink order, Lexa led the way back to the table, observing the other girl as she searched for a pencil, muttering under her breath. Just like when they’d met, Clarke’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail, though this one was much messier than the first. Her makeup was clearly left over from last night (though Lexa wasn’t sure that anything could really mess Clarke’s face up too much), and the sweatshirt she wore was about six sizes too big for her. _Of course she has a boyfriend._

 

Clarke took a deep sigh, resting her chin on her hands as she dropped her elbows on the table. “Fuckkkkkk,” she breathed. She looked up at Lexa, eyes wide in embarrassment. “Sorry. I tend to sound even more like a sailor when I’m hungover. My head is just not…not there right now.”

 

Lexa immediately dove into her bag, pulling out a bottle of Advil and placing it between the two. Clarke’s eyes lit up.

 

“You may be my new favorite person.” She unscrewed the bottle, popped two into her mouth, and washed them down with her coffee.

* * *

 

An hour later, they’d sketched out a tentative schedule and identified a few locations and charities as possibilities to work with. Clarke’s head had stopped pounding, but she still felt like the weak link: Lexa had come with a goddamn color-coded binder, list of contacts, and at least seven different colors of highlighter. Lexa’s v-neck t-shirt and tight jeans weren’t helping Clarke’s focus either. Although she’d been glad that the other girl hadn’t shown up in some sort of suit, she was still way more coiffed and put-together than she had any right to be. On top of this, Clarke couldn’t help but notice her absurdly defined biceps every time she picked up the binder, or her muscular forearms as she absentmindedly drummed her free left hand on the table.

 

Clarke could have sworn that Lexa had been checking her out as she came in, but every time their hands made contact as Clarke pointed at something or Lexa drew a note near her hand, the other girl jumped away as if zapped. Knowing that she was a bit grungy at the moment,Clarke subtly smelled herself and determined that that wasn’t the cause. Nevertheless, Lexa seemed determined to keep her eyes as firmly on the page as possible.

 

After a few more minutes of silence and seven truly obnoxious texts from Raven, Clarke slid their edited contact list between them. “So. It looks like Mecha Ave Community Center is our winner?”

 

Lexa nodded, twirling the end of her braid between her fingers as she stared at the paper. “It looks to have optimal accessibility between our two campuses, and my aunt has a personal connection with the coordinator.” She bit her lip, and Clarke felt her stomach jump. “I can stop by there on my run later today if that would be helpful.”

 

“I’d offer to do the same, but I’m more of a horizontal running type.” Clarke laughed weakly at her own stupid joke, and, when Lexadidn’t react, wondered whether she was enough of an alien to not haveseen _Pitch Perfect._ A moment later, those brilliantly green eyes met Clarke’s, and she was rewarded with a hesitant smile. “But yeah, that’d be awesome.”

 

Lexa’s smile widened, and she reached for a pencil off of the table without looking. It fell to the ground, and both girls immediately reached for it, their hands meeting right above it. Lexa’s head shot up, her deer in the headlights expression only furthered by her absurdly wide eyes. After a frozen moment, Lexa snatched the pencil and attempted to subtly shift her chair down a few inches. Clarke leaned back, her throat tightening as Lexa’s jaw worked. They sat there in silence for a couple of minutes before Clarke cleared her throat.

 

“So yeah, that, uh, sounds good.” Lexa nodded wordlessly, staring straight ahead. “Just text me the details or whatever later, and I’ll get on my people if you’ll get on yours.” She noted the lack of car keys in front of Lexa and figured it was only the polite thing to do. “Do you need a ride home?”

 

Lexa bit her lip again and shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not too far away,” she said, packing up her things. “But thank you. That’s very kind.”

 

Clarke pushed her own few belongings into her messy bag and ran her fingers over the top of her hair. They stood and faced each other, once again silent for an uncomfortably long moment before Clarke clicked her tongue. “So good work. I think this is gonna be great.” Lexa nodded again and her hand automatically came up for a moment as if she was going to try to shake Clarke’s before she clapped the other one over her arm and seemed to try to play it off as a stretch. She turned on her heel with a quick goodbye wave and nearly ran out the door.

 

Clarke closed her eyes and shook her head for a moment before muttering to herself, “What the fuck.”

* * *

Raven’s phone rang as she was driving, and it might have been irresponsible to pick it up, but the back roads were empty, and really, how much further could she actually screw herself up? “What’s up, Griffin? Finally done with the sexcapades?”

 

Clarke sighed deeply. “Raven, I don’t even know.” Raven snorted. “Like I just…I don’t get this girl.”

 

“Didn’t immediately fall for the Clarke Griffin charm? I’m amazed.”

 

“Oh shut up.” Raven took a quick right onto a half-dirt, half-paved road that had used to be part of her distance running route. Her truck gave a beleaguered rumble and a puff of exhaust as it trundled down the path. “Seriously, though. One moment she’s laughing and I swear to god flirting, and the next second it’s like I have the plague.”

 

“And what precisely were you doing?”

 

“Talking? I don’t know. Like our arms touched a couple of times—“

 

“Ooooh!”

 

“—Don’t. Just casually while passing papers and stuff and I swear she’d leave it there for a second before she jumped away. She jumped, Raven. She even fucking moved her chair a couple times.”

 

Laughing again, Raven pulled over onto the grass in front of a small pond. It had rained recently, so the ground was likely too soft for her crutches, but it still gave her a sense of serenity from the cab of the truck.

 

“I don’t know, Clarke. Sounds like you’ve got it bad.”

 

Clarke paused for a moment too long, and Raven smirked. “OK, I mean, she’s hot. She showed up in this partially see-through v-neck and jeans and I swear to god they were painted on. She’s also ripped. Like I’m talking _you_ ripped.” Raven winced for a moment and swore she could almost hear Clarke doing the same through the phone. “Shit, sorry.”

 

“Hey, if you think she’s hot, I’m flattered.” Raven shifted to lean up against the window, tapping the fingers of her own arm against the outside top of the window. “What’s your read on her?”

 

“You know my gaydar is for shit,” Clarke said before letting out a deep groan. “She was just also so formal. It made me…I don’t know.”

 

“I’m going to start doing shots every time you say that from now on.”

 

Raven heard Clarke’s ignition turn off in the background. “Yeah fine. She’s supposed to text me later after she talks to the head of the community center. You’re still in with this thing, right?”

 

“Anything for you,” Raven droned. “But seriously, scholarship or otherwise, I’m there.”

 

Clarke released another sigh. “OK, I’m home. Mom’s at the hospital, so if you feel like dropping by later, I could use the company.”

 

“I’ll text you. Now go take a shower; you stink.” Raven hung up before Clarke could reply and started up the truck again. In the past, running had been her escape and her way of reasoning through problems, whether a particularly tough equation or an especially pretentious comment that Finn had made. Driving didn’t cut it in precisely the same way, but up in the cab of her truck, Raven didn’t look any different than she had before. There were no pitying glances or people who worked far too hard to open doors for her. The Oregon sticker was still on the back windshield, and, as far as anyone knew, she was still Raven Reyes, set on her way to a full ride for track at Nike’s playground.

 

Pulling up to her apartment, Raven pulled the keys out of the ignition and rested her forehead on the steering wheel for a moment. Raven Reyes was not a crier, and damn if she was gonna do it sitting in the parking lot of her building where anyone could walk by and see. Ignoring the tightness in her throat and taking a few deep breaths, she wrapped her hand around the stupid bird keychain that Finn had given her. The boy may have been a scumbag, but he had been a part of her old life for a long time, and there was something about his gift’s sharp metal edges that felt strangely comforting to her.

 

Taking a deep breath, she sat up, confirming in the rear-view mirror that not a single tear had left her eyes. Nearly flinging her crutches out onto the ground in front of her, she hopped down from the truck and headed into her apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst! Awkwardness! What else do you need in an HSAU? Any feedback appreciated as always, and I’ll catch y’all on the flippity flop.


	5. The Kids Aren't Alright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where angst reigns, badass baby Blakes make up, and Clexa interacts in their trademark awkward fashion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: …I really need to stop being mean to Raven Reyes. OK, so everyone was having a bit too much fun the last few chapters, so here’s a Mount Weather-style angst missile for y’all. Enjoy (or maybe that’s not the right term here).

Lexa texted Clarke back around five that afternoon, simply saying that she’d spoken to the head of the Community Center, who was extremely enthusiastic about the project. Clarke had gone back to stacking Oreos on Raven’s head (a favorite pastime of hers, due to how deep a napper her friend was), only to be distracted two cookies away from a new record by a second text two minutes later.

 

 **Lexa Heda** : We should meet again to discuss specifics.

 

Clarke sat back for a moment, rubbing her eyes to make sure that she wasn’t hallucinating before rereading the message and flicking Raven in the head to wake her up.

 

“What the hell, Griffin?” The Oreos slid off her face, three of them hitting the floor.

 

“You’re wasting valuable snacks,” Clarke muttered, passing her phone to Raven while she took advantage of the five-second rule to pick up a cookie, examine it, and pop it into her mouth.

 

Raven glared at her before turning to the phone. “Your mom’s a doctor, Clarke. That’s pretty damn far from sanitary conditions.” She stared at the text for a moment. “So?”

 

“So?” Clarke snatched her phone back before standing up and beginning an anxious pacing route around the room. “We could easily figure this out over text, and she made it pretty damn clear by sprinting out this morning that she doesn’t really want to be around me.”

 

“Maybe she just sucks at texting?”

 

Clarke paused and considered the possibility for a moment before switching to a clockwise pattern of motion. “Maybe. Raven, I can’t read this girl.”

 

Raven sat up. “OK, first of all, you’re making me dizzy.” Clarke stopped pacing and faced her friend. “Second of all, you need to chill the fuck out. The great Clarke Griffin may be smooth with most people, but I haven’t seen anxious Clarke Griffin since…well, never, and I doubt she’s that great a Lothario.”

 

Clarke returned to her chair and slumped down. Yes, Lexa was exceedingly attractive. And yeah, maybe her intensity was something that drew Clarke to her, but she almost felt as if they were speaking completely different languages. Flirting had never been something on which Clarke had needed to focus, and honestly she wasn’t even sure what she was thinking or feeling at the moment.

 

She was pulled out of her musings by the sound of the front door opening and closing, followed by her mother’s voice. Abby Griffin came through the hallway into the living room, dark circles under her eyes and a surgical cap hanging out of her scrubs. “Oh, hello, Raven,” she said, coming over to Clarke and giving her a light squeeze on the shoulder. “What have you two been up to?”

 

“Shady deal brokering and illegal mechanical tampering,” Raven replied, slowly swinging her legs off the couch arm as she sat up. “All in a day’s work.”

 

Abby nodded slowly, perching on the arm of Clarke’s chair. “As long as it’s all for the common good.”

 

Over the past few months, Clarke had seen very little of her mother. The easy explanation was that the completion of the new wing had increased the foot traffic throughout the hospital and therefore, as Chief of Surgery, her mother’s workload. In reality, though, her mother had even struggled to meet Clarke’s gaze of late. It wasn’t her fault that she had her father’s eyes, but she couldn’t really blame her mother too much. Between her parents, Jake Griffin had always been around more often, able to coordinate the day-to-day business of his electronics firm from home. The result was that Abby was left to take care of a daughter she didn’t know particularly well, one who needed her father more than anything else.

 

Clarke gave her mother’s arm a quick squeeze, shooting her a small smile. She’d been trying in her own way; although Clarke’s dad had been the chef of the family, Abby had managed her best approximation of Clarke’s favorite lasagna (a bit burned but recognizable enough); she’d surprised Clarke with occasional gifts of a new set of watercolors or that high-def camera she’d been lusting after for months. It had been hard on both of them, and Clarke appreciated the effort.

 

“Did you want to stay for dinner?” Abby raised a white paper takeout bag in her hand. “I think I have enough Chinese here to feed a small army.”

 

Raven grinned as she reached for her crutches. “No matter how much I’d love to battle Clarke for the last dumpling, I have some leftovers calling my name at home. But thanks, Mrs. G.”

 

“Any time.” Abby stood up and walked Raven to the door while Clarke once again picked up her phone, her thumbs resting right above the screen.

 

“Oh fuck it,” she muttered.

 

 **Clarke Griffin:** When were you thinking?

* * *

Bellamy Blake ran to Skrillex. He wasn’t really sure when he’d started this habit, but there was something about excessive bass and overly-produced electronic screeching that had managed to keep him going, even through the heat of the summer. He wasn’t going to question it, though; he was in the best shape of his life due to this increased conditioning program, and he’d gained a new appreciation for running that not too many other football players shared.

 

The closing notes of ‘Bangarang’ in his ear, Bellamy paused for a moment to run through his next-door neighbor’s sprinkler before pulling his shirt out of the waistband of his shorts and wiping his face off as he walked in the kitchen door. Octavia sat at the island, seemingly having come back from a run herself only recently, a half-eaten sandwich in front of her as she fiddled with her phone.

 

“Hey.” Bellamy poured himself as a glass of water and turned around to find his sister’s eyes viciously fixed upon him. He would’ve laughed at her attempted ferocity if not for the fact that he almost believed that she might be able to kick his ass. This warrior’s spirit was turned to her sandwich as she tore off a huge bite, continuing to glare at him even as she was clearly struggling to keep her mouth shut.

 

“So are we just gonna avoid each other from now on?” Octavia paused her chewing for a moment, narrowing her eyes. “Because I’m pretty sure that’s my shirt that you stole, and likely also my headphones since I’ve never known you to be able to keep your own pair for longer than a week.”

 

She swallowed arduously (with the help of Bellamy’s water) and then slid her plate at him violently. “That depends. Are you gonna stop being an asshole?”

 

He began washing the plate, continuing to meet her eyes.  “I wouldn’t go with asshole—“

 

“Dick, then?”

 

Bellamy paused for a moment before cracking a smile. “I think I can live with that.”

 

Octavia’s gaze softened. “I want an apology.” Bellamy opened his mouth as if to protest. “And you have to teach me how to drive.”

 

“You can’t get your license for almost a year!”

 

“C’mon, Bell. You really think Mom will ever teach me even when I turn 16?”

 

“Fair,” he said. “Alright. I’m sorry.”

 

“And?”

 

“I’m a dick.”

 

“And?”

 

“I am your humble instructor whenever you shall so choose.”

 

Placated, Octavia smiled and began to walk out of the room. “Also,” she said, turning back for a second. “I’m keeping the headphones.”

 

“O.” She raised her eyebrows at him. “I’m glad you’re home.”

* * *

Raven’s truck had given a few splutters on the way home that had made her briefly convinced that she’d have to push the damn thing the rest of the way while awkwardly hopping on one leg (not that she thought she couldn’t manage it). When she’d carefully pulled back into her parking lot, she made a mental note to spend her Sunday on a full-body inspection.

 

Once safely inside her apartment, she dropped her crutches and relied upon the furniture she’d strategically placed (with Bellamy’s help) to provide her with safe hopping paths. It was only once she’d made it to the fridge, grabbed the slightly suspect chicken she’d made the week before, and flipped the light on in her kitchen that she realized she was not alone.

 

“Holy shit, Dad.” Raven’s father stood up from the couch and flipped on the lamp next to him, reminding Raven eerily of a villain in some knock-off Bond movie.

 

“Raven.” His face as unreadable as ever, Anton Reyes placed the set of keys he’d been holding in his hand back into the jacket of his perfectly pressed suit. His eyes flitted around the apartment for a moment, coming to rest on Raven’s crutches before he looked back at his daughter. “I see your manners are as impeccable as ever.”

 

“You surprised me.” Raven placed the Tupperware container onto the counter and adopted the most formidable position that she could while using the refrigerator for support. She might have still been slightly exhausted after her late night and the ordeal of getting up five flights of narrow stairs on a pair of crutches, but damn if she was going to let her father see her as weak.

 

He nodded curtly, his unnervingly black eyes set on his daughter’s, almost daring her to look away first. “We have some things to discuss.”

 

“Already got your check for the month.”

 

“I assumed as such.”

 

“Then what’s the issue?”

 

“Were you planning to tell me about the accident?”

 

Raven let out a sharp breath. Lying in the hospital, even doped up on pain meds, she had repeatedly and almost violently reminded the nurses over and over that yes, she was a legally emancipated minor, and no, she did not have a family member who they should reach out to. Clarke had attempted to protest, saying that maybe her dad could be of _some_ sort of help, at which Raven had snapped that not everybody had the flawless relationship that Clarke and her father had shared. Clarke had stormed out of the room at that, eyes filling with tears. Not Raven’s finest moment.

 

But no, Anton Reyes was in Raven’s life solely financially. Yeah, maybe her mom had a drug problem, and yeah, maybe Raven herself had gotten the hell out of that house when she’d turned sixteen, but not even paying her rent and insurance could make up for the fact that he’d left a 12-year-old alone with a woman who was high about five days a week.

 

“Didn’t think you’d care.”

 

“It _is_ my insurance policy.”

 

Raven recoiled as if she’d been slapped. _Of course._ Silly of her to think that her father had discovered that his daughter had been seriously injured and come out of some sort of human compassion or even simple fatherly duty. No, it was to rail at his daughter for the sheer nerve to get injured and place some sort of pecuniary burden upon him.

 

She took a deep breath. “Well, I’m deeply sorry for the inconvenience.”

 

She swore that she almost saw an emotion cross his face for a moment. “I’m assuming that the scholarship is gone, then?”

 

“I’ve fixed that. Thank god that your daughter is useful for something other than running circles around a track.”

 

He nodded. “And college?”

 

Raven’s breath caught in her throat. “Working on it.”

 

“Something more concrete than ‘working on it’ would be preferable. I’ve put a lot of time and money into your education and I’d rather not see it go to waste due to your poor decision making.”

 

 _He knew._ Somehow, that bastard had gotten a hold of medical records or, since she really wouldn’t put it past him, hired a private investigator to figure out what his screw-up of a daughter had done to land him with a nasty hospital bill.

 

“There’s a pattern here, and I find it concerning.” He reached inside his jacket pocket, and pulled out a thick stack of folded paper.

 

She hopped as defiantly as possible to snatch the documents out of his hand. “Are you making me sign a contract?”

 

“I don’t see it as unreasonable. When your daughter drunkenly falls off a roof and essentially ends her collegiate prospects, I believe it to be only sensible to attempt to establish some parameters around her behavior.”

 

Silently flipping through the pages, Raven could tell that this was his own handiwork. Years of sitting up in his desk chair and playing lawyer had familiarized her with her father’s particular style of screwing people over. It was truly personal then; they’d gone beyond the typed-out envelopes with her monthly checks to a set of rules by which he could ensure that this one nagging reminder of his previous life didn’t interrupt him more than was necessary.

 

She swallowed, doing her best to quell the lump in her throat and willed her hands to stop shaking. “I’m going to need some time to look it over.”

 

The lawyer in her father was the part of him that she’d interacted with the most since he’d left, and so it was almost easier for them to speak in these terms, no matter how much it hurt Raven that she was essentially agreeing to an attorney-client relationship at the cost of any shreds of familial sentiments that remained.

 

“That sounds acceptable. Return it to the usual address by the end of the month.” He smoothed his suit and made for the door.

 

“And if I have any questions?”

 

A brief pause at Raven’s wounded snap. “You have the number for my secretary.” The door closed behind him, and she slid to the floor. Raven Reyes was not a crier, but damn if she didn’t eventually fall asleep in the same position, curled into a corner with mascara running down her face.

* * *

 “It’s the future. Why don’t we have calculators that can do this for us?” Lincoln slumped down until his head rested in the middle of his open calc textbook. Lexa considered beginning a speech on the merits of the TI-89 Titanium, but thought better of it as her cousin sat up from the textbook with the worksheet that had been sitting inside stuck to his face.

 

“We’re barely a week into the semester. You can do this.” She turned back to her own worksheet, beginning to check it over for the third time.

 

“Thank god you’re a giant nerd and already in the same math level as me.” Lexa turned to him and stuck out her tongue, prompting a chuckle. They worked in silence for a few minutes. “So.” She looked up. “How’d coffee go?”

 

It was funny, because Lexa had been asking herself the same exact question, and maybe that was why it had taken her about two hours to get through the twenty questions on her homework in the first place. “It went,” she said as nonchalantly as possible.

 

“It went?” Lexa busied herself with carefully blowing the eraser flecks off of the page. “C’mon, Lex, you have to give me more than that.”

 

“We made plans. I dropped by Mecha to talk to Luna and she was very interested. She said they’ve been thinking of making some expansions and could certainly use some help with that to start.” Lexa’s thoughts turned to her phone and the text she’d sent a couple of hours ago.

 

“Alright, awesome. I can build stuff. Might even be able to get Nyko and a few others in on it.” Lincoln stretched and yawned. “So what’s this Clarke think of that?”

 

Lexa continued to thicken the lines on every single number on her worksheet. “I haven’t had any further communication with her.” She could feel Lincoln’s eyes on her, but abjectly refused to look up. He made a clicking sound with his tongue and pulled his phone out of his pocket as it rang.

 

“Hey Mom. Yeah, I’m at Lexa’s.” He turned his face away from the phone towards Lexa. “She says hi.” Lexa smiled as he turned back. “Ummmm pizza? Yes, I know there are other foods.” She stifled a laugh. “OK. OK. I’ll be fine, Mom. MOM. I’m 6’2” and we live three blocks away. I will text you every fifteen steps. Yes. Yes. OK. Bye.”

 

Lincoln let out a deep sigh, closed his textbook and carelessly threw it along with his pencils and notebook into his bag. “Mama Bear has demanded my return,” he said dramatically.

 

“I heard.” He sent a quick text on his phone and stood up, throwing his bag over his shoulder.

 

“You gonna be ok?”

 

Lexa nodded. “Anya has the closing shift for the gym, but the bar’s not open late tonight so she’s coming home right after.”

 

“Cool. Alright.” He headed out the door, turning around right before he closed it. “Keep your phone close. I still have three problems left and I’ve probably been hit too many times on the head to get it done by myself.” Lexa smiled, giving him a wave as he shut the door.

Grabbing her phone from the table on which it’d sat for no other reason than to be there in case Lincoln needed assistance, Lexa saw that she had two texts from Anya, letting her know she’d be home in about twenty minutes, and one from Clarke Griffin.

 

 **Clarke Griffin:** When were you thinking?

 

It had been sent about an hour and a half ago, and Lexa immediately felt guilty for not responding more expediently, because efficiency was of the highest value in a new organization. Or something like that. Management books all blended together at some point. Lexa walked to her room and pulled up her calendar again (color coded, of course), and identified three possible dates within the next week.

 

 **Lexa Heda:** I have Tuesday after five available.

 

Sure, she’d have to come right from practice, but she could just bring some extra deodorant and be fine. Lexa’s phone went off surprisingly quickly.

 

 **Clarke Griffin:** Works for me! Starbucks again?

 

 **Lexa Heda** : If it is convenient for you.

 

Maybe she’d have to run from practice, but Coach Gustus certainly wouldn’t mind her getting an extra workout in, and she could count her backpack’s added weight as some sort of strength training.

 

 **Clarke Griffin** : Yeah totally

**Clarke Griffin:** Oh and I’m buying the coffee this time after you saved my ass with that Advil :)

 

Lexa’s stomach had never jumped at punctuation before. Figuring there was nothing else to be said, she plugged her phone into her charger and walked out of her room just as she heard Anya enter the apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N 2: So for anyone who would have been particularly annoyed at a lack of Lexa POV in this chapter, go thank Viridicus (and read their fics). Feel free to come say hi over at my Tumblr, and may Leap Day William bless you all. 
> 
> A/N 3: I have Anya angst stored. It’s coming for you all (in a side fic but still). Muahahahaha.


	6. Wipe Your Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Raven copes, Lexa trips, and constructive plans are made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I realized I’m a complete asshole whose plotting has forced them to push back the main OTP's shit for a while. Subplots, y’know? I hope y’all are willing to put up with me for this, and I promise the eventual resolution will be worth the wait. Peace and blessings.

She hadn’t meant to call him. Raven had made it pretty clear from the outset that whatever the hell this was wasn’t serious, wouldn’t turn into a relationship, and they sure as shit weren’t going to tell anyone about it. But she’d woken up on the floor of her kitchen on Sunday morning, makeup smeared down her face and a Tupperware of ruined food on the counter, located her phone, and dialed Bellamy Blake.

 

And damn if it wasn’t satisfying when he showed up at the door as requested, hair wet from a recent shower. In the past, Raven had always taken the lead, slamming him into walls and doing precisely what she wanted. Now, Bellamy picked her up the second she let him in, mouth on her neck as she wove her fingers into his hair. Kicking her crutches aside, he carried her to her bedroom, pulling back as always when they settled on the bed to make sure that this was exactly what she wanted, Raven responding in form with an indignant sigh and a tug at his pants.

 

So maybe she’d trained him to do exactly what she wanted. Raven was not so delusional that she thought that she was the only girl Bellamy Blake had been with; he was the football stud of the school, a four star recruit to USC, and honestly she would have been a bit turned off if she’d had to 100% lead the way. Finn had spoiled her enough in the three years they’d been together, but Bellamy was a quick study.

 

She settled back as he kissed his way down her chest, his fingers running up and down her thighs in a way that sent sparks down her spine. He was taking his goddamn time and she wasn’t having it, and so she pushed his head down, prompting an indignant grunt before he gave in and slipped his fingers into the waistband of her shorts.

 

Maybe it was selfish, but Raven couldn’t really care too much as he teased her with his thumb before pushing her over the edge with a combination of his mouth and two perfectly curved fingers. And yeah, maybe their position options were limited due to her only having one good knee, but she’d sure as hell managed to return the favor in the end.

 

After catching his breath as they lay next to each other, Bellamy turned onto his left side to face her. “So. Are you going to tell me what that was all about?”

 

Raven adopted the best smirk she could. “Damn, are you complaining now? I’m relatively positive that you at least had some sort of a good time.”

 

“Don’t fuck with me.” Raven snorted. “Oh shut up, you know what I mean. You _called_ me out of the blue on a Sunday. When has that happened before?”

 

She turned to face him and raised her left shoulder in a shrug. “Can’t 100% control my libido, Bell. Sorry if it’s an inconvenience for you.”

 

He sighed. “Look, I’ve known you for long enough that you can’t bullshit me. Something’s up, and I’m honestly worried.”

 

“You’re _worried_?” Raven sat up, enjoying the height advantage that she only ever had on him in her truck or in bed. “What’s that supposed to mean exactly?” Bellamy opened his mouth and then suddenly closed it as if he’d thought better of what he was going to say. “No, Bell, what do you mean?”

 

“I’m worried!” He sat up and faced her. “Am I not allowed to be concerned about my g—my friend?”

 

Raven’s eyes narrowed. “I’m sorry, want to run that word by me again?”

 

“C’mon Raven. If you’re just going to pretend that this is just fucking friendship—“

 

“—That’s exactly what it’s supposed to be! _Fucking_ friendship.” She scoffed. “Is that what’s going on? You think you’re my boyfriend and therefore you think you can get all protective and controlling all the time?”

 

“Even as your friend, I can be concerned that you’re starting to go off the deep end.” They were both silent for a moment. Bellamy closed his eyes, shook his head, and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know, Ray, you’ve just been…off lately.”

 

Raven set her jaw, staring down at her pillow. “Well, things have changed.” She heard Bellamy let out a sharp breath. _Maybe too much of a low blow._ “Sucks. I’m dealing with it.”

 

His hand reached for hers on the bed, but she pulled it back, watching out of the corner of her eye as he finally gave up and out dressed. Pausing at the door to her bedroom, he turned around. “Raven?” She looked up and met his gaze. He seemed to struggle with his words before lightly shaking his head. “Finn was an asshole.”

* * *

 Tuesday came with a rainstorm that thankfully promised to break the absurd heat wave they’d been suffering under for the past couple of weeks. Clarke finished class at 2:30 and buried herself in the art studio for the next hour and a half before she packed her stuff up in order to have time to change before meeting Lexa. Yeah, she could make her uniform look slightly better and _no it was not a date_ , but it wouldn’t hurt to go home and maybe put on something a bit more relaxed.

 

Holding her physics textbook over her head as a rain shield, she jogged to her car, threw her bag into the front seat, and set the radio to a pop hits station, currently playing “Uptown Funk” for likely the fifteenth time that day. About ten minutes out from her house, Clarke caught sight of a girl on the side of the road, doing an unnatural sort of limp-jog as she went. She was completely drenched, her white tank top was tucked into the waistline of her shorts, and, Clarke saw as she drew closer, had blood streaming down the outside of her leg. After a moment, Clarke also realized that it was Lexa.

 

Pulling over, she rolled down the window. “Lexa!” The other girl whirled around, squinting through the rain and the eyeliner running down her face before a look of realization dawned on her.

 

“Clarke?” Lexa took a few steps towards Clarke’s car, favoring her uninjured leg. “What are you doing here?”

 

“I was just dropping home to grab some stuff before our meeting.” Clarke pointed at her leg. “Are you all right?”

 

Lexa looked sheepish and seemed about to launch into some speech about how it was no big deal until she attempted to place her weight on her leg and winced. “I tripped. Didn’t see the edge of the sidewalk.”

 

“Do you need a ride? You’re hurt and really wet and—“ Clarke bit her lip for a moment. “Like it’s raining. It can’t be too comfortable.”

 

“I actually like running in the rain, Clarke,” Lexa said. “And this isn’t too bad.”

 

“Lexa. You’re still like two miles from Three Rivers, right?” Lexa nodded. “C’mon, it’s barely out of my way.”

 

Lexa opened her mouth for a moment, then let out a sigh, pulled her drenched tank top on, and opened Clarke’s car door. As she buckled herself in, Clarke realized how truly see-through Lexa’s tank top in, and noted that yes, there were six very clearly defined abdominals there. On top of that, she was wearing a pair of goddamn spandex shorts, clinging tightly to a pair of incredibly long, muscular legs.

 

Lexa seemed to notice Clarke’s gaze, but apparently thought that it was due to her leg wound and started searching around Clarke’s car. “Do you have a napkin or something? I don’t want to bleed all over your car.”

 

“OK, well, that should be the least of your concerns.” Clarke pulled out a wad of napkins from the driver’s side door pocket and handed them over. “I’m more worried about you bleeding out or something.”

 

As Lexa cleaned her leg up, Clarke started to drive down the road. “It seems primarily superficial,” Lexa said without looking up. Clarke did her best to keep her eyes on the road and not on the roll of Lexa’s absurdly muscular shoulders as she tamped napkin after napkin up and down her leg.

 

The car was completely silent for the rest of the drive to Three Rivers, other than Lexa’s occasional wince of pain and the sound of the downpour outside. Clarke had briefly considered putting on music, but had no idea what Lexa listened to; classic rock or indies bands that no one had ever heard of, she guessed. By the time Clarke pulled into the parking lot of the school, Lexa was silently staring out the window, the blood on her leg pretty much contained by the napkins.

 

Clarke pulled into a spot close to the back door, outside of which a group of similarly drenched girls were stretching. Lexa opened the door and immediately stumbled as she attempted to get out, barely catching herself on the frame. Clarke rushed around the front, pulling the other girl up and slipping Lexa’s arm over her shoulder.

 

“Clarke, I’m fine,” Lexa muttered. Clarke fixed her with a withering stare and shifted so that she was more steadily supporting Lexa’s weight.

 

“You’re gonna fall on your face before you make it ten feet.” Before Lexa could complete the indignant sound starting from her mouth, Clarke started off towards the back door, leaving the other girl no choice. Her teammates watched them carefully as a bear of a man jogged over.

 

“What happened?” He came around to Lexa’s other side, admittedly making Clarke’s job a bit harder due to their height difference.

 

“She fell. I found her on the side of the road.”

 

“I’m _fine_ , Gustus.” At this point, Lexa was basically being dragged, and the group made their way like a mismatched three-legged race through the back door, down a couple of hallways, and into a small trainer’s room. A slight, but apparently very strong, woman managed to force Lexa up onto the trainer’s table despite her protests before shooing the coach and Clarke out of the room.

 

They stood there in silence for a moment as the sounds of Lexa’s griping came through the door. “So, are you a friend of Lexa’s?”

 

Clarke considered this for a moment. “I guess?” Coach Gustus quirked an eyebrow. “We met at a seminar thing and we’re working on a volunteer program. I go to Ark Academy.”

 

Gustus smiled, understanding dawning on his face. “You must be Clarke.”

 

She couldn’t hide the surprise on her face as she realized that Lexa had gone out of her way to talk about her. Yeah, she knew that sports teams were close, but still, it was…flattering? Maybe that wasn’t the right word. But it was something.

 

A yelp sounded through the door and Clarke peered around Gustus to see Lexa propped up on her elbow, grimacing as the trainer swabbed her leg with  some sort of antibacterial liquid before wrapping a bandage around the deepest wounds. Clarke leaned back against the wall, stifling a giggle as Lexa’s coach disappeared into the training room.

 

A couple minutes later, Lexa hesitantly limped through the door, looking shocked that Clarke was still there. “You didn’t have to stay,” she said, continuing her path down the hall with the support of the wall to her left, Clarke following behind her.

 

“Well, you’re certainly not walking to coffee on that leg.” Clarke stepped in front of her to open the door to the outside, and Lexa fixed her with yet another unreadable look before heading outside. While Lexa talked to her teammates briefly, Clarke pressed her body up against the building in order to fit under the awning and opened her phone to three texts from Raven (two winky face emojis and a coffee emoji next to a pair of scissors), one from Octavia asking Clarke to borrow her spare tie for school tomorrow, and a Snapchat from Jasper in Bellamy’s den (notably lacking Bellamy, which made Clarke unsure of the legality of Jasper’s presence there).

 

Lexa walked back over to Clarke, a track bag over her shoulder, apologized for ‘taking so long’ (all of three minutes) and followed Clarke back over to the parking lot. As Clarke cranked up the heat in an attempt to dry them out, Lexa pulled out sweatpants and a track jacket from the bag and balanced against the car as she dressed. By the time she’d climbed back in the car, Clarke had settled on the latest Walk the Moon album as a crowd pleaser. They eased out of the parking lot as Clarke sang loudly to the music and Lexa awkwardly nodded along after Clarke had stared at her for long enough.

* * *

It was moments like this that Lexa especially hated her curly hair. In the rain, it had been held down by the moisture and its weight, and although she couldn’t see, she was sure that wispy tendrils were slowly rising off her head as she sat in the coffee shop. Clarke seemed to be distracted by the folder of impressive (and color-coded) materials that she’d brought along with her this time, and so Lexa quickly ran her hand over the top of her head and confirmed exactly what she’d thought. Within half an hour, she’d have a veritable halo crowning her.

 

If this wasn’t bad enough, Clarke had already seen her practically naked. Even better, Clarke had seen her looking like a clumsy idiot, and the fact that her knee was currently stinging like crazy did not help. Thankfully, the trainer had determined that she only needed a day or two off and her training schedule would not be wrecked for the first invitational, but it was still a bit of an annoyance.

 

So Lexa was a bit distracted. It didn’t help either that the Ark Academy uniforms were apparently a lot more…liberal than she’d expected. She did her best to keep her eyes locked on the straw with which she was stirring the green tea that Clarke had bought her after she had insisted repeatedly to Clarke that _yes, that was what she wanted_ and _no, she didn’t want five pastries to go with it._

Clarke paused to rip a piece off of her chocolate croissant, let out a deep sigh, and slumped onto the table on top of a pile of papers. She turned her head slightly to meet Lexa’s eyes. “Sorry, long day.” Lexa gave her a small smile. “AP Physics is kicking my ass.”

 

“I didn’t particularly enjoy it either.” Lexa once again became entranced by her straw. “I took it last year.”

 

Clarke sat back up and stretched her arms beside her head ( _straws are really great, aren’t they?_ ). “Well, maybe I’ll just have to ask you for help later.” Lexa realized that Clarke was staring at her and slowly looked back at her.

 

“Um. Yes.” She immediately grabbed a paper from in front of Clarke and looked at the list of names on it. She recognized a few as high-profile members of the Ark football team and Raven Reyes, an Oregon recruit about whom Gustus had complained due to the fact that only her scholarship at Ark had kept her from the Three Rivers team. Yes, he could get bitter and he had once had her practice for three weeks straight without a day off, but she knew he meant well.

 

“This is an impressive group of participants.”

 

Clarke grinned. “Thanks,” she said. “I had to twist a few arms, but Bell can’t say no to me, and the team can’t say no to him.” _That must be the boyfriend._

“My cousin Lincoln is on our football team. He’s promised that a couple of his teammates will be there to assist us as well.” Lexa rubbed the back of her neck to work out a kink. She was admittedly sore, having gotten in a good nine miles before she’d gone up against the sidewalk and lost. It was after she’d moved on to rolling out her shoulders that she realized that Clarke was watching her very closely, eyes wide. “Clarke?”

 

Clarke immediately shut her eyes and shook her head, grabbing the nearest pencil and writing a few notes on her copy of Lexa’s contact list. “Yeah, sorry. Coffee hasn’t hit me yet.”

 

Lexa passed Clarke’s list back over. “So it’s good that we have all of these football players then.” Clarke looked up. “I talked to Luna—she’s the center coordinator—and the first thing they need is someone to build an extension.”

 

“So like Habitat for Humanity or something?”

 

“Yeah, I guess so.” She pulled out her phone to read over Luna’s last text on the subject. “They want an area to have an after-school program, so it’d be nothing fancy, but they can’t really afford a contractor.”

 

“Nothing like a bunch of excessively testosterone-fueled teenage boys to get the job done then, right?” Clarke picked up her own phone from the table and sent a quick text. “Maybe they can even convince Coach Kane to count it as conditioning or something?”

 

“Good thinking. I’ll try to get Lincoln to sell that one too.” Lexa pulled up her calendar on her phone. “So would this weekend work for you all?”

 

Clarke grabbed a planner from her backpack and considered it for a moment. “I think so,” she said slowly. “I mean, I’ll have to double check with everyone, but it’s early in the year, so we don’t  have too much going on.” She sent another text, made a few notes in her planner and put it away. “Like Saturday afternoon maybe?”

 

Lexa nodded. “I’ll talk to Lincoln.” Sensing that there wasn’t much else to do, Lexa passed Clarke’s papers back to her, put her own pencil back in her gym bag, and waited as Clarke finished packing up.

 

When her backpack was closed, Clarke stood up, picking her keys up off the table. “Hey, if it’s nice, maybe we can even get a tan.” Lexa smiled as Clarke looked back out the window at the pouring rain. “Wouldn’t that be a nice change. OK, it’s still nasty out and I don’t want you walking home on that leg, so will you let me give you a ride home this time?”

 

Gustus had essentially threatened to bench her for their non-invitational meets for the next few weeks if she didn’t get enough rest, and while she knew he wasn’t technically omniscient, Lexa didn’t necessarily doubt that he had enough spies to find out if she’d been limping her way home. She took a deep breath. “Are you sure it’s not too much out of your way?”

 

Clarke shook her head energetically. “I mean, I don’t even know where you live, but my _Real Housewives_ marathon can wait an extra twenty minutes or so.” She grabbed their cups, tossed them in the trash, and led them out the door.

 

Slightly shouting over the upbeat pop pumping out of Clarke’s car speakers, Lexa directed Clarke the seven blocks to her apartment. Parking in front of the entrance, Clarke turned to Lexa. “Thank you for not being a stubborn ass and giving in.”

 

“Thank you for stopping my coach from taking out a hit on me.”

 

Clarke giggled, unlocking Lexa’s car door. “I’ll see you later. And oh, I’ll text you once I hear from Bell and the rest of them about Saturday.”

 

Lexa stepped out of the car, shut the door, and gave Clarke a quick wave as she drove away. Hopping up the four flights of stairs, she unlocked the door and found Anya sitting inside at the kitchen table.

 

“Hey!” Anya looked up. “You’re home early.”

 

“Lost power at the gym,” Anya said, closing her laptop. “Kind of hard to work out when 90% of the machines won’t move.” Lexa walked in and dropped her bag on the floor. “OK, why are you limping?”

 

“It’s nothing serious!” But Lexa was too late as Anya grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the bathroom, where she was treated to a lengthy lecture on ‘taking care of her damn self’ as her sister fussed over her cuts and then sat her in front of the TV with an ice pack, a few Advil, and a water bottle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can’t handle these dorks. I seriously cannot. But (and please don’t hate me), there may be a brief break between this chapter and the next, due to the fact that I will be in Florida surrounded by frat boys this weekend. I may post the Anya side fic if I get a chance (and dependent on when I actually get this up), but I will try to get chapter 7 out as soon as possible when I get back.


	7. Figure It Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The community service project meets for the first time, relationships are built, and awkward teenagers are awkward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, sorry for the break between Chapter Six and this one. I banged out about 15 pages of papers today, so I figured I might as well get this one done while I’m on a (theoretical) writing roll. We’re finally seeing everyone interact, so yay! Hope y’all’s semesters/years in general are going well.

By Friday, Lexa was back at practice. Gustus threatened to send her in for an eye exam before he’d let her run off by herself again, but she assured him that her eyesight was perfectly acceptable when not caught in an absurd monsoon on yet another of his torturously long runs. He’d laughed at that, assuring her that she wouldn’t feel so abused while hoisting a state championship trophy.

 

And so she was back on the streets again that afternoon, sun pounding brutally on her shoulders after a two-day respite following the thunderstorm. The main disadvantage of being the best on her team was that she ran alone most of the time, but she’d gotten used to it at this point. Back when Anya had been a star herself at school, Lexa had done her best to keep up with her on her punishing summer runs, and she’d come into freshmen year already fast enough and certainly mentally tough enough to make varsity. Besides, running alone let her set her own pace, and she’d realized, particularly after Costia, that if you ran hard enough, you didn’t really have energy to think.

 

Lexa rounded the corner onto a road that led down a shady path to a small pond, secluded enough that she’d never seen another person here before. This time, however, she caught sight of a rusted old truck parked by side of the pond. After a moment’s hesitation, she reasoned that there was a good chance that the piece of junk was broken down and left there; it had been a while since she’d been around this particular area of town.

 

As she came closer, she saw that someone was in the truck bed, sunglasses over her eyes and leaning back with a pair of crutches lying next to her. Lexa had almost made it past the truck when she heard a rustling sound.

 

“Um, hey?” Lexa turned around as the truck’s occupant slid the sunglasses up onto her head, sitting up and squinting at Lexa, who shifted uncomfortably under the girl’s suspicious gaze.

 

“Hi.” Lexa instinctively stepped forward and almost offered her hand in a shake, but something in the girl’s eyes convinced her that she was relatively likely to get whacked over the head with one of those crutches if she tried.

 

“So I’ve never seen anyone else here before.”

 

“I could say the same.” The two adopted similarly combative stances as they refused to break eye contact, and Lexa had to appreciate the fact that her counterpart managed to be surprisingly intimidating while still sitting. “I’m Lexa.”

 

The other girl wrinkled her forehead quizzically for a moment and then broke into a surprisingly pleasant smile. “No fucking way!” Lexa took a step back at her vehemence. “No way. You’re Clarke’s friend.”

 

Lexa took another look at the girl and her truck, catching sight of an Oregon sticker, now visible as she adjusted herself to sit up. Then it hit her. “Raven?”

 

Raven Reyes smirked. “I see my reputation precedes me.” Balancing on the sides of the truck bed, she pushed herself forward using her arms and stuck out her hand. Lexa hesitantly shook it, stepping back again as Raven looked her up and down before giving her a strange nod.

 

“Guess it shouldn’t shock me that the new best runner in the state knows my old routes?” Lexa almost launched into a retort about how she’d come in two places before Raven at last year’s regionals before she once again looked at the crutches and realized that arguing with Clarke’s crippled friend might not be the best course of action.

 

“It’s quite refreshing, particularly in this heat.” Raven gave her a quick look of disbelief as Lexa seriously wished that she’d brought a shirt despite the weather because while it was bad enough that Clarke had seen her in a state of undress, she’d rather not have it turn into a trend for all of Ark Academy.

 

“That it is.” They stood in silence for a moment before Raven cleared her throat. “So, you’re gonna be at that community service thing tomorrow, right?”

 

Making sure to wait a proper amount of time before responding so that it was not clear that she’d been counting down to this Saturday all week (she hadn’t gotten to see Lincoln much lately so it’d be a valuable familial bonding project, of course), Lexa nodded. “Oh, yes,” she said airily. “Will you be as well?”

 

“Yeah.” Raven tapped her crutches. “These things might not make me much in the way of lifting, but Bell and his thugs have got that covered, and hey, I figure someone could always use a brilliant mechanical mind, right?” She fixed Lexa with another strangely penetrating stare before looking down at presumably the phone in her lap. “But hey, if anyone gets not interrupting a long run, it’s me. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

 

“Sounds like a plan.” Lexa gave her an awkward wave, which a muffled snort from Raven made her immediately regret as she jogged down the path a few yards. _Great first impression on Clarke’s friends._

* * *

Clarke’s phone rang just as the nonsense she was currently watching went to break. As ‘Your Lord and Savior’ came up on the lock screen with a close-up shot of a middle finger, she made a mental note not to let Raven near her phone again without supervision. “You interrupted my studying.”

 

Raven laughed. “By that, you mean your marathon of _Botched_ , right?”

 

“It was the Kardashians, actually,” Clarke grumbled. “To what do I owe the honor of this call?”

 

“Guess who I just met?” Raven sounded particularly giddy, almost to a worrisome degree. Clarke let out a sigh.

 

“I dunno. One of the MythBusters?”

 

“Dude, too soon. Those were my explosion-happy spirit animals.” Clarke chuckled. “But no. Almost better.” After a moment’s silence, Raven seemed to lose patience. “CLARKE!”

 

Clarke, who had started picking at a hangnail, almost dropped her phone. “OK, OK, who?”

 

“Lexa.”

 

“Lexa?!”

 

“Lexa.”

 

Not particularly knowing how to respond, Clarke gulped. “Where?”

 

“She was on one of my old running routes, and I was just taking a nap in my truck when she ran by. Get jealous; I saw your girlfriend topless before you did.”

 

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Clarke muttered. “And no you didn’t.”

 

“ _What?_ Have you been holding out on me? Were there sexcapades? Who’s on top?” Clarke tried to respond. “No wait, let me guess. Her. No, you. Switch hitters?”

 

“Raven!” Raven snickered. “When I picked her up on the side of the road on Tuesday, she was in her sports bra.”

 

“Hot damn. Well, I approve.”

 

Clarke rolled her eyes. “I’m so grateful. I was devastatingly concerned.”

 

“I know you were,” Raven said. “But seriously, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, you need to climb that like a tree. Though I’m kinda understanding your confusion.”

 

Clarke, thankful that this conversation was happening over the phone rather than in person, made sure to take a moment before responding, because that’s what casual people who are simply holding a discussion about a mutual acquaintance do. “Care to elaborate?”

 

“She’s weird as fuck, man. Like I felt like I was speaking to…I don’t know, like Bellamy’s mom. A bit too formal to be in high school.” She paused for a moment. “So basically tomorrow, we’re going to completely analyze her and figure out what the hell’s going on.”

 

 _As if that’s not what I’ve been doing every time I’m around her._ “I think that’s kind of a lost cause, Ray.”

 

“You underestimate my skills of manipulation, Griffin.” Clarke grinned. “But hey, I’m gonna head home because there’s some moldy leftovers and a shit ton of AP Stats calling my name. What time again tomorrow?”

 

“11.”

 

Raven groaned. “Only for you.” She hung up, and Clarke unmuted the TV. She had to admit that having Raven on her side in the Lexa mystery wouldn’t be the worst thing. She might be blunt as hell in most occasions, but Raven certainly seemed to be gung-hoon making something happen between Clarke and Lexa, and _fuck it,_ Clarke had to admit that she had…something for Lexa. She was hot, she was smart as hell, and if anything, the weird intensity only intrigued her further.

* * *

As if having to be at the community center by 11 wasn’t already bad enough, Raven had stupidly given in to her best friend’s whining and agreed to meet Bellamy at the hardware store half an hour before to load the necessary materials into their trucks. She sat in the cab of the truck, making occasional conversation with Atom, Miller, and Murphy, who was apparently there due to some agreement with Jaha that had allowed him to evade expulsion in the second week of school, as they passed by her. Her phone became infinitely more interesting every time Bellamy walked by.

 

Twenty minutes later, Atom jumped into the truck next to her and they followed Bellamy a few blocks over to Mecha Ave. Raven recognized the area, as she and her mom had lived a couple blocks away. She’d even slept at this same community center a few nights when she’d gotten locked out, and as they drove through the gate of the beat-up chain-link fence, she saw that it hadn’t changed much.

 

Clarke was already at the front door when they arrived, exceedingly made up for a day of hard labor and wearing a low-cut tank and a pair of hilariously short denim shorts. _Griffin came to play._ After Atom jumped out of the truck and handed Raven her crutches, she walked over to where Clarke stood as the boys unloaded the trucks. Jasper and Monty sat on the swings on the other side of the building, presumably also bullied by Clarke into a Saturday of very non-Jasper and Monty physical labor.

 

“I’m surprised you didn’t curl your hair.” Clarke, who had been fiddling with her phone, jumped a bit as Raven spoke.

 

“What?”

 

Raven raised an eyebrow. “I swear you were less done up when you went to prom with Bellamy last year.”

 

“Hey, I just want to make a good impression.”

 

“Yeah you do.”

 

“On the community center.”

 

“All over that community center, huh?” Clarke punched her in the arm. “Hey! Don’t make me kick your ass and get dirt all over your daisy dukes there.”

 

Clarke’s retort was drowned out by the sounds of Bellamy’s yelp as Murphy dropped a toolbox on his foot and gravel flying as a car came up the drive. Parking next to Bellamy’s truck, the first car let out a slight groan as it came to a halt. Raven immediately launched into an audial analysis of that particular engine sound and how to fix it as a tall, built guy of around their age climbed out of the car. Two slightly smaller boys followed him from the back, eventually succeeded by Lexa from the front passenger seat.

 

Catching sight of Clarke, Lexa beamed and waved, walking over to where she and Raven stood. The two guys from the back remained behind, attempting to simultaneously flex subtly and size up their Ark counterparts, who of course did the exact same thing.

 

“Clarke!” Lexa almost seemed as if she was about to give Clarke a hug before thinking better of it. The driver of the car followed her. “This is my cousin Lincoln.” He smiled surprisingly bashfully for a guy that goddamn attractive, acknowledging Clarke and Raven with a quick nod. “Sorry we didn’t bring more people to help. We had some issues with transportation.”

 

“No worries!” Clarke beamed like a giant dork, toying with the bottom of her shirt in such an obviously nervous way that Raven had to exert all her energy to hold back her instinctive eye roll. “We can totally figure something out for next time. We’re mostly pretty close.”

 

Lexa nodded, and the two gazed at each other with goofy grins for a few painful moments before Lexa became transfixed by her feet. Raven let out a sigh and all of the other three seemed grateful to have an excuse to look elsewhere.

 

“So, are we gonna do this, or are we gonna let the guys turn this into a West Side Story-style brawl?” It was certainly getting close, as Murphy had apparently spat onto the ground a bit too close to one of the Three Rivers guys’ shoes. Lincoln jogged over, placing his body conspicuously between the two as he shook Bellamy’s hand. _Well, at least we have one peacekeeper._

* * *

Three hours later, Lexa regretted not having brought more sunscreen. She could feel herself beginning to burn as she attempted to rub the soreness from her shoulders brought upon by carrying a bunch of planks after she had proven to be significantly stronger than the floppy-haired, clearly non-football playing boy who had come with the Ark Academy students. Looking to her right as she cracked her neck, she made eye contact with Clarke and grinned.

 

Clarke had been surprisingly helpful throughout the day, including sprinting over at a truly surprising pace to push Lexa out of the way of a beam that her friend Jasper had apparently not secured well enough. This had ended with the two of them on the ground, Clarke’s hand on Lexa’s stomach, but after she’d jumped up, offered her hand to Lexa, and the two had simultaneously had a spontaneous coughing fit, everything had pretty much gone back to normal.

 

Lexa turned her eyes over to the boy she’d assumed to be Clarke’s boyfriend. She could appreciate that Bellamy Blake was attractive, well-built and tall like she’d expect a college-recruited football player to be, and gifted with a wide, bright smile that he’d flashed Clarke’s way a fair amount of times during the day. Her friend Raven did not seem to be his biggest fan, ferociously snapping at him when his elbow caught her in the back of the head as he hammered in a plank onto the wall.

 

“You’re turning red,” Lincoln said to Lexa as she absentmindedly screwed in a piece of the window frame.

 

“You’re starting to sound like your mother,” Lexa said. “Yes, I know I should’ve brought more sunscreen.”

 

Lincoln laughed. “I mean, I wasn’t really referring to that.” He jerked his head lightly over in Clarke’s direction, who was thankfully engaged in a conversation with Raven on the other side of the incomplete room. “You’ve been staring.”

 

She turned back to the window frame. “We’re friends. You’ve been over there having a testosterone contest with Bellamy and I don’t know anyone else here.”

 

“Lex, you’re pretty close to drooling.”

 

“I do not drool.”

 

He smirked. “OK then. Just be a bit more subtle maybe?” Lexa shrugged and he walked away just as Clarke’s friend Monty slipped off a ladder, only to be caught by Nathan Miller, the Ark quarterback.

 

They made a surprising amount of progress over the next few hours, despite a snack break in which Jasper ate a slightly suspect brownie that he repeatedly attempted to get Lexa to try. After this, he spent the rest of the afternoon on the swings, Monty occasionally jogging over to make sure that he didn’t attempt a high jump that would launch him onto the rusty fence.

 

As the sun went down, they stepped back to admire their handiwork. The boys, apparently having bonded through labor, nodded appreciatively and slapped each other on the back.Feeling a tap on her shoulder, Lexa spun around. Clarke stood there, phone in hand.

 

“I think we deserve a picture to document our success.” She smiled, and Lexa felt an increasingly familiar tightness in her throat. “I mean, Jaha probably wants evidence that we’re actually doing something and not just dicking around.” She stood slightly behind Lexa and raised her phone up to take a selfie with the new addition in the background. Lexa took a sharp intake of breath as Clarke’s arm brushed against her back.

 

“Hey, are you leaving the real workers out of this?” Bellamy appeared at Clarke’s elbow. Lexa let out the breath, shoulders slumping as Bellamy took the phone, waiting as everyone clustered behind them, crouching and jostling to fit in. After he’d taken a couple of pictures, Clarke requested that he also take a Snapchat. Once this was taken care of, the group dispersed, Raven talking to a slightly less wobbly Jasper and the brooding Murphy as Miller and Monty stood off by themselves until Lincoln and Bellamy jogged over to them.

 

This left Clarke and Lexa alone as the sunset fell over Clarke’s shoulder, casting a golden light around her head. She was playing with her phone and let out a peal of laughter a moment later as it vibrated. Looking up at Lexa, she saw the quizzical expression on her face.

 

“Sorry, my friend Octavia—Bellamy’s sister. I sent her the Snapchat, and apparently she’s ‘so in’ for next time.”

 

“I guess we just look that fun?” Lexa laughed weakly, extremely grateful when Clarke joined in a moment later.

 

“I guess so. Who wouldn’t want to hang out with you—us?” Clarke looked down at the ground for a moment before staring back up into Lexa’s eyes. She became extremely aware of how close they were for the second time today, and was almost grateful when Bellamy shouted for Clarke to ask if she needed a ride home. After she’d replied that she’d driven there, Clarke turned back to Lexa, who had taken the moment to step back a very respectful five feet.

 

“So…that was good?”

 

“Yes, certainly.” Lexa knotted her hands behind her back as the Ark trucks rolled out of the parking area behind her. “I’m sure that I’ll hear from Luna within a couple of days and then we can make our next plans.”

 

“Awesome. Yeah, just text me whenever.” Clarke looked over to where her car was parked on the opposite side of the lot from Lexa’s. “I’ll see you around?”

 

“I am looking forward to it.” Clarke paused for a minute and smiled before turning around and walking off as Lexa contemplated where this ranked on the list of stupid things that she’d said in her life, eventually placing it in the top five. After Clarke had gotten a safe distance away, Lexa jogged over to Lincoln, who gave her a knowing wink before they climbed into the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thirst. It’s what’s for dinner. Unless you’re Raven. Then you just subsist on a healthy diet of rage and sarcasm. Hope y’all enjoyed it, and come say hi over at tumblr if the mood strikes you.


	8. The Kids Don't Stand a Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with a lot of running, literal and metaphorical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, two chapters in a row where I’m apologizing for a hiatus. In my defense, I’ve written 40 pages of academic papers in the last week so I think I have a mild excuse here. This is being written coming off of a lengthy Agents of Shield marathon, so I apologize if Melinda May accidentally backflips down the hallway somewhere here.

One of the many benefits of the overpriced, pretentious institution that was Ark Academy was the vast array of extracurriculars it offered. Sure, Raven likely would’ve found some way to mess around with cars and machines without the school’s garage and shop class (there was a scrap yard near her apartment, the fence of which she’d managed to scale many times), but this wasmuch more convenient…and legal. The familiar scent of motor oil greeted her as she walked into the empty garage, running her fingers over a stack of hubcaps on the table closest to the door.

 

 The sound of electrical sparks and an indignant yelp sounded from to her right, and Raven craned her neck to see a boy with a mop of blonde hair emerging from a car, sucking on his left hand.

 

“Wick?” Kyle Wick dropped his hand to his side, shaking it lightly as he turned to face her.

 

“Raven Reyes. Haven’t seen you in a while.” He leaned against the car in what he surely thought was an especially nonchalant manner. “May I ask what you’re doing in my domain?”

 

Raven let out a huff. “Apparently watching you electrocute your own dumb ass.” She hopped her way over to where he stood, realizing as she got closer that it was Principal Jaha’s car on which he’d been working. “Want to tell me what you’re doing to Jaha’s car?”

 

Wick picked up a screwdriver from the table next to him and leaned back inside. “He offered to pay me a bit of cash on the side to upgrade the sound system and general electronic setup in his car.” He grimaced at the display for a moment before looking up at Raven. “I guess he’s surprising his son with it as a birthday present or something before he buys a new one. I don’t know.”

 

Raven nodded as Wick turned back to his work, pulling out the outdated audio console with a precise set of hands, placing it on the dashboard as he peered at a few wires. “And you’re the best he could find?”

 

Wick paused for a moment, looking back up at her with a hurt look on his face. “Hey, we all know you’re the best with engines but I did rewire half of the audio systems and revolutionize the audiovisual setup in the auditorium.”

 

“I guess AV dorks have to be good for something.” When Wick offered no immediate response, Raven made her way over to a nearby car with its hood propped open, and was a couple minutes into diagnosing a few engine issues before she felt  eyes on her back. “May I help you?”

 

She turned back around as Wick made his way over towards her, spinning the screwdriver between his hands. “So Jaha also said he wouldn’t mind a couple maintenance checks if I had the time. And yes, I may be a god of electrical engineering—“ Raven delivered the eye roll that she had held back throughout all of Clarke and Lexa’s interactions “—but I’d rather not half-ass some mechanical work and piss off the principal.”

 

Raven leaned against the car behind her. “I see your problem. What’s in it for me?”

 

“Split it 70/30?” Raven raised her eyebrows. “60/40. We could even call this some extracurricular club or something; I’ve had a few other teachers and students talk to me about wanting cheap upgrades and I could use a set of hands.”

 

It was almost too convenient. But Wick stood there, looking earnestly like a puppy dog as he fiddled with his screwdriver. Checking him up and down, Raven had to admit he wasn’t unattractive either; maybe a bit less built than other guys she knew, but he was smart. And if there was extra cash on the side involved and the opportunity to fulfill her scholarship requirements, hell, she could do worse.

 

“I mean, I’m assuming you’re planning to go into mechanical engineering next year, and even the great Raven Reyes could probably use another tick on her resume, so –”

 

“Slow down, Wick.” He snapped his mouth closed. “I’m in. I could use something on there other than running at this point.” She expected the typical response of a quick yet oh so visible flick of the eyes over to her crutches, followed by intense focus on one’s shoes, and then a truly special blush that Raven only tried to intensify via glaring at this point. But Wick only fixed his eyes on her left knee for a moment before he met her gaze.

 

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about that.” He dropped the screwdriver on the bench near Jaha’s car and walked over to a cubby, Raven following at a distance. After rummaging for a moment, he pulled out what looked like a black pile of fabric, dropping it on the bench in front of her. Raven squinted closely as he straightened it out, revealing a system of metal brace pieces, screws, and knobs.

 

“Getting ready for ComicCon early this year?”

 “It’s…well, it’s for you, actually.”

 

“I’m flattered, but I’m more of a Slave Leia type of girl than a…whatever the hell that is.”

 

Wick held it out, lowering it a bit until it lined up with Raven’s waist and…oh. It was some sort of knee brace, clearly homemade. Before she could stop herself, Raven’s brain was running through a list of design flaws and easy improvements, eyes flitting around the garage for necessary pieces. The mechanic in her fought with the pissed-off former athlete as she stared back up at Wick, jaw set.

 

“I uh, I heard about your injury and you know my dad works at the medical supply store so we had stuff lying around and I figured why not? Could be some sort of senior design project but I would’ve done it anyways.” He immediately seemed to regret this last statement, squeezing his eyes shut as he continued to hold the brace out, arm starting to shake a bit.

 

Raven leaned her right crutch against the bench, reaching forward and grabbing the brace. It was surprisingly light and flexible, the metal pieces setto bend as necessary while the straps and knobs kept what needed to be in place still. She swallowed deeply, turning it over a couple of times in her hands before looking back up at Wick’s hopeful face.

 

“Well, if we’re doing this club thing, the first project I’m starting with is fixing this piece of crap. This is why you can never leave tech jocks alone with mechanical instruments.”

 

Wick let out a sharp breath. “Hey, are we forgetting the time that you managed to shut down the majority of the school’s computers for a week by downloading a virus because you and Clarke Griffin were competing to find the nastiest porn you could?”

 

“I stand by that decision. Wholly and completely.”

 

“Well, I’m sure as hell not letting you near any of Jaha’s electronics.”

 

“Oh Wick, you’re just scared of what I could find.” She put the brace back on the bench, giving him a light push as she moved in front of the principal’s car. “OK, now let’s pop this hood open and see what sort of antiquated shit I’m working with here.”

* * *

After three days of ceaseless begging, Clarke had given in and promised to drive Octavia to the mall to search for a Homecoming outfit. The Homecoming dance itself wasn’t particularly big at school, largely because they had a fair amount of commuters from decent distances, but Bellamy’s Homecoming bash had become so legendary that even Mrs. Blake knew about it. They had some sort of unspoken understanding about it that Clarke slightly believed involved a sacrifice of goats in a pentacle or something, but the party had gone unhindered for the past two years, and Bellamy’s senior year was sure to put them all to shame.

 

So on Thursday afternoon, after Clarke had spent a few hours prepping for her art showcase, she met a very sweaty Octavia in the parking lot. It took some very pointed sighs and four text messages from Clarke to drag her away from her teammates, with whom she’d apparently bonded very quickly.

 

Octavia climbed into the passenger side of the car, tossing her track bag into the back seat as Clarke started the car up, wrinkling her nose. “Do you even know what deodorant is, O?”

 

The younger girl leaned in towards Clarke, who pressed herself back up against her car door, opening the window with her elbow. Octavia sat back in her seat and laughed as she took control of the radio. “That’s the smell of a champion, Clarke. Don’t be jealous because your only athletic pursuit involves tripping over yourself in front of pretty girls.”

 

Clarke rolled her eyes, easing out of the parking lot as Octavia settled on ‘Trap Queen’ and rolled her own window down. “I’m guessing you talked to Raven?”

 

“Oh, she also provided me with plenty of Snaps of you ‘subtly’ checking out Lexa’s ass at the Community Center on Saturday. So smooth.” At this point, her phone rang, prompting an eye roll that could only indicate a call from Mrs. Blake. Before Octavia could turn up the music that would surely give her conservative mother a heart attack, Clarke cut the sound and spent the fifteen-minute drive to the mall listening to Mrs. Blake’s barrage of questions and Octavia’s monosyllabic responses, even having to chime in at one point that, yes, Octavia was with her, and yes, she would call her if there were any problems.

 

Letting out a deep sigh as Clarke parked in front of Nordstrom, Octavia grabbed her wallet from her bag and stepped out of the car. After a brief, very necessary stop at Auntie Anne’s for pretzel dogs, Clarke followed Octavia around the mall, cursing the exceptionally poor cell service as she waited for her friend to try on outfit after outfit.

 

It might have been healthy, actually. Clarke was starting to think she might seem creepy as she had now double-texted Lexa on multiple occasions. Not that Lexa didn’t respond consistently when Clarke texted her; in fact, she’d even gotten a smiley face out of her last night after Clarke had sent her a joke about how neutrons never got charged at bars. They’d already agreed to meet up at the cross country invitational she and Octavia would both be competing in that weekend, and Lexa had been especially helpful on a few of Clarke’s problem sets.

 

“Texting your girlfriend?” Clarke jumped as Octavia appeared over her shoulder, shoving her phone back into her pocket.

 

“Please.” She stood up to see her friend holding a dress with a triumphant grin on her face. “Found it?”

 

“Found it.” Clarke followed her to the register. “By the way, if you can find any time between talking about your shared love for construction and high-achieving youth culture, want to get me any more details on that cousin of hers? What was it, Lincoln?”

 

Clarke nodded. “I think he’s coming to the invitational this Saturday too. But you’re hitting stalker level, O.”

 

“Following him on Twitter is not stalkerish. We had like five mutual followers. It’s fine.” Clarke raised her eyebrow. “Whatever. This Lexa thing though.”

 

This goddamn Lexa thing. It had almost been easier when she’d been jumping thirty feet away at Clarke’s touch and taking weeks to return texts. Now that she actually was holding conversations, Clarke was more confused than ever. And she could swear to god that they’d almost come close to kissing at the community center before Bellamy had exercised his incredible talent at cockblocking Clarke. Though maybe it was for the best, since his last attempt at matchmaking had led to Finn.

 

“I’m just letting things play out,” Clarke said breezily. “I barely know her. I’m not even sure that we’re 100% at ‘friends’ yet.”

 

“Sometimes other things come before friends. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping for.” Having paid for her dress, Octavia led the way out of the store. “But I have faith in us. And the universe. For now, I’m just going to thank god for that gene pool.”

* * *

 The race had been relatively uneventful, except for when Lexa had been shoved out of third place by the ill-placed elbow of some girl rushing past her. This wasn’t necessarily abnormal, and Lexa could be content with fourth out of over two hundred participants, but it was the principle of the action that got to her more than anything else. She stood at the finish line next to Gustus for the next few minutes, sucking down a Gatorade, until the remaining six members of her team had finished. They shared a quick high five and cheer before they collectively performed the post-race shuffle to their team tent.

 

While other team members were engulfed in hugs by their parents, Lexa scanned the crowds surrounding the field of tents, eventually spotting the gold and light blue colors of Ark Academy. Pulling her phone out of her bag, she saw that she had a ‘good luck’ text from Anya and one from Lincoln telling her that he’d gone to the snack shack after he’d seen her finish and would be back in a few. Placing the phone on her ground, she pulled her warm-ups back on, rolling a kink out of her right shoulder and gingerly poking at the spot in her ribs where the remarkably bony elbow of her assailant had landed.

 

“Lexa!” a familiar husky voice called out from behind her, and Lexa turned around to see Clarke striding towards her, a grin on her face and Raven Reyes in tow. She paused for a moment a couple feet from Lexa, eventually closing the distance for a hug. “That was awesome!”

 

Lexa smiled at her feet. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m probably a bit gross to hug.”

 

“Eh, she’s used to it,” Raven interjected with a laugh. “But hey, good race. Guess I shouldn’t feel as bad about you beating me at regionals last year.” Lexa was shocked that she’d actually remembered, feeling a quick burst of pride in her stomach as she looked back up at Clarke, only to see the girl who’d shoved her out of the way jump onto her from behind.

 

Clarke stumbled forwards, only managing to regain her balance by grabbing onto Lexa’s shoulder. “Did you fucking see that?” Clarke’s human backpack leapt off of her as Clarke detached her hand from Lexa with an apologetic grin. “Third place!”

 

Raven snickered. “Were you even slightly paying attention at the end, O?”

 

“Uh, yeah. Shoved some chick out of the way. No one ever technically ruled cross country as a non-contact sport.”

 

“I might have to disagree with that,” Lexa said, glaring at Raven and Clarke’s companion as Clarke sheepishly took her place next to her. “As the ‘chick’ in question.”

 

The girl’s mouth dropped open as if to respond, just as Clarke stepped between the two. “Octavia, this is Lexa. Lexa, this is Bellamy’s sister Octavia.”

 

Octavia’s shock was replaced with a knowing grin. “Oh _. Lexa_. I guess maybe I should say sorry then?” Clarke shot her a look like a disapproving mother. “Alright, definitely sorry.”

 

Lexa nodded. “It’s fine. I’d be lying if I said this hadn’t happened before. I once was nearly thrown into a tree during a race, and landed very hard on my face. But you just have to get over it and get back up.”

 

Octavia considered Lexa’s statement for a moment before responding with a nod of her own. “I like that. Get knocked down, get back up.” As she spoke, her eyes traveled behind Lexa’s head, and her face lit up even more. Lexa turned around to see Lincoln approaching her, two chili dogs and a soda in hand.

 

“One for me, one for you.” He handed the snack to Lexa, rolling his eyes as she attempted to protest. “The race is over, and you can go back to eating like a rabbit when you get home.” Lexa let out a sigh and accepted the food, grimacing as the smell of mass-produced chili filled her nostrils.

 

Octavia, meanwhile, was staring Lincoln up and down with a clearly predatory expression on her face that had Clarke literally clasping her hands over her mouth to try to contain her laughter. Raven was making no similar attempt, but Lincoln seemed too interested in stuffing his chili dog into his mouth in as few bites as possible to notice.

 

Lexa, making eye contact with a clearly desperate Clarke, decided to take charge. “This is my cousin Lincoln.” The addressed party took a deep gulp before gving the three girls across from him a wide smile. Octavia stuck out her hand, which Lincoln took cautiously as he met her gaze.

 

“Octavia,” she said. “My friends call me _O_.” At this, Raven doubled over in laughter, almost dropping her crutch as Lincoln stared on in concern.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

Raven stood back up, coughing. “Sorry. Bug in my mouth. You know how these things go.”

 

Lexa thanked Indra for Lincoln’s upbringing that seemed to leave him wholly oblivious to the situation. Clarke shot her an apologetic smile that only served to make Lexa herself blush as Raven’s eyes flitted from idiot to idiot with a smirk.

 

Octavia and Lincoln held eye contact for a few silent moments before Raven stepped in between the two. “That chili dog looked surprisingly good.” Lincoln tore his eyes away from Octavia’s. “Raven,” she said, offering her hand much less awkwardly than the younger girl. “Want to help me locate one?”

 

“Sure, sounds good.” He turned to Octavia. “Want to come with?”

 

Octavia responded with an exceedingly enthusiastic nod, leaving alongside Lincoln as he walked away from the tent. Raven turned to Lexa and Clarke. “You kids be good.” Clarke rolled her eyes, giving Raven a quick wave before she followed the other two.

 

“So,” Clarke said. Lexa once again became extremely aware of her sweat-covered self and attempted to pat down her hair as subtly as possible while wiping a bead of sweat off her brow that she couldn’t remember having been there before Clarke cameover. “I guess you’re kind of a badass in a ton of different areas.”

 

“What?”

 

“Sorry. I mean, like, that was pretty kickass,” Clarke said, a smile that Lexa could almost categorize as shy spreading across her face. “I swear you could put Raven to shame. You know, like in her prime. Running.” She exhaled sharply, and Lexa was filled with the desire to put a comforting hand on Clarke’s arm as her face dropped.

 

“Well, thank you. Coach Gustus has a singular vision to win states this year, so we’ve been working very hard.” She shoved her hands into her pockets to suppress this feeling. “But it was really good of you to come and support your friend. Octavia seems like quite the athlete.”

 

Clarke, seemingly grateful for the subject shift, nodded. “Those Blakes always make everyone look bad. Bell already has a full ride to USC, and I won’t be too surprised if O follows him.” Lexa’s throat tightened at the mention of Bellamy. “But hey, you totally would’ve had her if she hadn’t felt the need to combine football with cross country.”

 

Lexa surprised herself by letting out a laugh that was astonishingly close to a giggle, one that she attempted to immediately cover with a cough and a quick posture shift. “I’m a little surprised that she isn’t a football player herself.”

 

“Hey, she’s only a sophomore. She’s got time.” A silence fell between the two as, for once, Clarke seemed to be carefully considering her words. After opening and closing her mouth a few times, she bit her lip ( _fuck_ ) and locked her gaze onto Lexa’s. “So, I had a question.”

 

Lexa’s mouth became dry enough to the extent that she could only respond with a raised eyebrow.

 

“It’s kind of dumb, but we have Homecoming next weekend, and Bellamy always throws this big party thing after. And—” she looked over at the snack shack, where Octavia was laughing and lightly punching Lincoln on the arm while Raven rolled her eyes “—Octavia and Lincoln seem to be getting along, so I was wondering if you all might want to come.” Lexa stood silently stunned for a moment. “I mean, you could invite other people too, it’s not like an exclusive thing and—”

 

“Yes.” Lexa’s voice seemed to surprise both of them. Clarke’s face lit up. “That sounds fun. It’d be nice to see you—and the other team members outside of manual labor.”

 

“Really? OK, awesome. I’ll text you the details and time and yeah.” Lexa’s phone vibrated in her pocket, and she pulled it out to see Anya’s face on the lock screen.

 

“I’m sorry to end this, but my sister is calling.”

 

Clarke continued to grin, shaking her head. “No worries at all. I’ll see you next weekend!” Lexa could have sworn that she skipped over to Lincoln and Octavia as they returned.

 

A few minutes later, Lexa was sitting in the car with Anya on the way home, the latter having just finished telling a story of how she’d pinned some handsy asshole against the wall after he’d grabbed her ass for the third time the night before at the bar. “I probably should put up some warning that I work at a gym as my second job before these drunk morons decide that they’re in a strip club.” Noting Lexa’s complete lack of response, she shoved her in the arm. “Lex. You’re even harder to read than usual.”

 

“Sorry. Hard race.” Anya fixed her with a blistering glare as they stopped at a light. “I mean.” Lexa shook her head. “Nothing.”

 

“Out with it.” Lexa let out a note of protest. “After sixteen years, you should know you can’t bullshit me. I trained you in the art of stone face.”

 

She sighed. “It’s just—I feel weird.”

 

“Weird?”

 

“You know when something happens and you think it makes you one way but then you think that maybe you’re not that way and it’s just confusing?”

 

Anya laughed. “How could anyone know what that means?”

 

“Um, ok. So like what if you thought one thing and then you didn’t think you could do that thing but then you could and that made you feel bad?”

 

“Is this about Costia?” These were the moments when Lexa hated how similar she and her sister had become in the last years. “C’mon Lex, you’re about as subtle as a gut punch.”

 

“I guess.” Lexa shook her head. “I really don’t know. It’s just still…soon.”

 

Anya pulled into her assigned parking space and turned off the car. “I know. And you’ve been so strong through this. But it’s got to be something big to make you think about it.”

 

“Big doesn’t always mean good.” She shut her eyes against the tears threatening to well up, knowing it was a lost cause as her sister’s hand landed on her shoulder.

 

“Just because you lost someone doesn’t mean you have to lose yourself. She wouldn’t want that for you.” Lexa nodded. “Acceptance of something new doesn’t require forgetting something else. No one could live on if that were true.” Anya climbed out of the car, Lexa following a moment later.

 

“Are you sure you weren’t a philosophy major?”

 

Anya laughed. “Please. I leave the pointless pondering wholly to you.” She threw her arm around her sister’s shoulder as they walked inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’m sorry for the long chapter, but it will make everyone happier in the long run because it allowed me to cut out another one. Things are happening. Connections are being made. Angst flows in all directions (thirst isn’t far behind). Tune in next time for “Stupid Babies Acting Like Shits” Pt. 9, and a happy finals to all those in this same hell I’m living. If anyone wants to say hi on tumblr, my URL has been changed to “anyasmud.” Stay frosty, my friends.


	9. Closer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one with the mopey quarterback, the vegetable platter, and the squirrel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what I should be doing right now? Studying for my final. You know what I’m doing? Well, this, obviously. Regardless, this needed to happen because I have feelings. Also, I’m a second semester senior with no chance of failing out so that helps. STAY IN SCHOOL KIDDOS TRALALALA (finals are hard).

“You really thought that three kegs weren’t enough?” Bellamy let out a huff as he pushed the canister toward Miller on the other side of Clarke’s car. Clarke herself was burdened down with a box piled high with tequila, vodka, and, at Bellamy’s pretentious request, gin.

 

Octavia picked up the last box from Clarke’s trunk, balancing it on her hip. “Are you really complaining, Bell? It’s your last Homecoming hurrah. More importantly, my first. Damn momentous occasion.”

 

“I thought it was necessary to have one in each of the main downstairs rooms. Aesthetic, y’know?” Clarke said innocently.

 

Bellamy snorted. “Aesthetic?”

 

“She _is_ an artist, Bell.” Octavia held the screen door open to the house as Bellamy and Clarke staggered through. “I wouldn’t question her.”

 

Placing the keg gingerly on the floor in the living room, Bellamy rolled his shoulders out while Clarke dropped her box on the kitchen island, Octavia following suit. “So did you bribe your mom to leave on a Thursday just for this or are security conferences just getting that much more demanding?”

 

“Please.” Bellamy started to walk around the room, grabbing fragile vases and other decorations as he went. “I’m not that good. We just got very lucky that she had to go to New York on short notice.”

 

“This is true.” Octavia placed Bellamy’s protected items into the cupboard under the sink as he moved into the dining room. “He had a whole agenda set up for us–shopping list, cleaning and all – so he could go be the big football hero. I’m honestly a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see you attempt to carry a keg.”

 

Clarke stuck out her tongue. “Hey, you owe me. That outfit of yours which, let’s not forget, I took you to get, would be completely pointless if I hadn’t invited Lexa and Lincoln.”

 

Chuckling, Octavia performed her own quick sweep of the kitchen for objects that, as Bellamy had put it, would land both of their asses in military school if broken. “Right, because I’m the _only_ one winning out in this scenario.”

 

Clarke was saved the indignity of a response by a text from Raven, asking her for a ride to Bellamy’s tomorrow because “I plan to be so drunk that neither of my legs will work properly.” Texting back her assent, Clarke placed her phone on the island.

 

“Looks like Raven’s planning to save you the trouble of being the drunkest girl at the party.”

 

Octavia pouted. “Hey! That is my rightful title. Bitch is gonna have to fight me.”

 

“Tequila Cowboy 2.0?”

 

“Hell yeah.”

 

A quick buzz from Clarke’s phone reminded her that she had promised her mother to pick up dinner on the way home. “I’ll bring the Advil. You gonna be OK feeding yourself?”

 

“Bellamy the mother hen has it covered. I’m set.” A shout of indignation sounded from the other room as Clarke headed out the front door.

 

As she got into her car, Clarke’s phone began to ring. Letting out a sigh, she picked up. “No, Mom, I won’t forget the egg rolls.”

 

“Clarke.” Her breath stopped short at the husky voice on the other side of the line. Clarke had already automatically run her fingers through her hair a couple of times before she remembered that no, people cannot see you through purely audio calls. “Clarke? Are you there?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, hey Lexa.” Annoyed at how high her voice had come out, she cleared her throat. “What’s up?”

 

“I was just calling to get some details about tomorrow. The gathering at your friend’s house?” Clarke could have sworn that it sounded like Lexa was reading off of a script. “Would it be helpful for Lincoln and me to bring anything? Additionally, we’re planning to bring two friends if that’s acceptable.”

 

There were times when Lexa’s excessive formality still caught her off guard, and it was starting to confuse her that she found it so weirdly attractive. “Um, I guess chasers or mixers would be good? Like sodas and stuff to mix with drinks.”

 

“I know what chasers are, Clarke.” _That’s news._ “Any food?”

 

“I do get pretty bad drunchies. I’m guessing you don’t happen to have nachos on hand?”

 

“Clarke, no one has nachos on hand.” Lexa Heda was laughing at her. It was a rare enough sound that Clarke didn’t mind, but she did have to mentally chastise the bumbling, insecure shit she seemed to turn into any time she spoke to, thought of, or was in the presence of this girl.

 

“I think you’re being a bit closed-minded, Lexa.” She swore she could hear a snort over the phone. “Anyways, two friends are totally fine. More the merrier? Octavia seems to think this is some sort of celebration for her as well, so she’d love more adoring fans.”

 

“She seems to have enough of one in Lincoln,” Lexa said. “She made quite the impression on him.”

 

Clarke smirked. “I’m glad to hear it.” They sat in silence for a moment until Clarke’s stomach began to angrily alert her to the time. “But yeah. Chasers, friends, all that. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

 

“Looking forward to it. Good luck to your team on their homecoming.” Lexa hung up, and Clarke smacked herself in the forehead before she drove off to get enough Chinese food to stuff her mouth before she could stick her foot even further in it.

* * *

The shorts were all Lincoln’s fault. Lexa could swear it was almost like he was pimping her out. She’d bought them years ago with Costia, had never worn them, and seriously began to wonder why she opened a pair of stupidly short jeans shorts as she did her best to pull them down (to no avail). Lincoln, catching her in his peripheral vision, let out a laugh.

 

“They’re that short for a reason, Lex.” She shot him a glare. “Hey, if I remember correctly, it took me approximately five seconds to convince you.”

 

“You’re an instigator.”

 

“And you give in to peer pressure way too easily. Remember to always DARE, okay?” She shoved him in the arm, almost knocking his jug of orange juice to the ground. “But anyways, no one forced you to wear that top.”

 

Lexa stared down at her tank top. Yes, maybe it was a bit lower cut than what she normally wore, but she normally wore athletic clothes, so it was a slightly unfair comparison. “It’s often warm at parties. I’m being logical. I wouldn’t want to get overheated and speed the dehydration process.”

 

“Well, I think it looks good,” Nyko said, two bottles of soda under each arm. Ryder followed behind, sheepishly carrying the vegetable platter that Lexa had insisted they bring because it was only polite.

 

Lincoln knocked on the door, which swung open a moment later to reveal a wild-eyed Bellamy Blake, drink in hand. He peered at them for a moment suspiciously before recognizing Lincoln and Ryder. “Friends!” He stepped out of the way to allow them inside before clapping Lincoln on the back vigorously, spilling his own drink in the process. “Shit. Whatever. Welcome to the home of a champion.”

 

The Three Rivers boys exchanged glances as Lexa’s attention was grabbed by a raucously laughing Octavia Blake, perched on the arm of a couch next to the goggles-wearing Jasper. Catching sight of Lincoln at the door, Octavia choked on a sip of her drink, sloshing it onto her admirably short dress. _Those oh-so-graceful Blakes._

 

Lexa turned back to her cousin, noting Bellamy’s absence, apparently having left Lincoln with his drink. He shot her a helpless glance as he attempted to balance the juice, one of Nyko’s bottles, and the cup. At his side, Ryder looked like he wanted nothing more than to spike the vegetable plate on the ground like he was doing his touchdown dance.

 

Beckoning them over to the kitchen, Lexa cleared a space on the counter for the platter (and yes she realized that bringing it was a very dumb idea), then glanced over the assorted bottles for the least questionable one.

 

“I’d go with the tequila, personally.” Lexa looked up to see Raven Reyes across the table from her, a drink of her own in hand. “It’s O’s favorite, so Bellamy is willing to spring for a glass bottle there.”

 

Lexa nodded. “Thanks for the advice.” The boys had already dissipated to the nearest keg, and as Lincoln passed, Lexa saw Octavia make her way over to the counter.

 

“Lexa!” Her voice louder than necessary despite the pounding bass, Octavia engulfed Lexa in a one-armed hug, managing this time to balance the cup in her hand. “I didn’t think you’d come. Let’s be honest, you don’t seem like much of a partier. Too much of a stick up—” Raven jammed an elbow into Octavia’s side. The younger girl went silent, locating a fresh cup from the table and holding it out to Lexa. “Drink?”

 

“I think I can take my stick out for one evening,” she said dryly, pouring in a relatively conservative amount of Raven’s recommended beverage and mixing it with Lincoln’s orange juice.

 

Raven grinned as she watched. “Tequila sunrise? A girl after my own heart.”

 

Octavia placed three shot glasses in front of them, sloshing vodka from a bottle over the sides as she poured. “While you old ladies may want to sip juice all night, I think shots are a necessity.”

 

“Bit of liquid courage there, O?” Raven said, smirking.

 

“I have a feeling I’m not the only one who needs it,” Octavia said, flashing a knowing look in Lexa’s direction just as Clarke rounded the corner. Lexa picked up the shot glass, Raven and Octavia following suit, and knocked it back with a grimace. It had been a while since she’d had any sort of drink, and unsurprisingly, no one had managed to make vodka from a plastic bottle taste any better since then. She spluttered a bit as Clarke walked up to them.

 

“You guys started without me?” Lexa couldn’t be sure whether it was the vodka or Clarke’s pout that made her stomach jump, but she immediately poured another shot and wordlessly handed it to Clarke. The other girl smiled. “I don’t like to drink alone.”

 

Raven rolled her eyes as Octavia filled up the other two shot glasses. “Well, this is officially getting too hormonal for me. I’m gonna go kick Jasper’s ass at pong.” She turned away, and Lexa noticed for the first time that she wasn’t using crutches, rather limping her way across the room with some sort of brace on her knee.

 

Lexa was distracted from watching her go by Octavia punching her in the arm. “Are you going to make this some sort of habit?”

 

Octavia laughed in response. “Take your shot, and then we’re going to go talk to your cousin.” Meeting Clarke’s eyes, Lexa tossed back the second shot, squinting as the alcohol burned her throat, then picked up her cup and followed the other two to the keg on which Lincoln was currently doing a stand.

* * *

True to her word, Raven kicked Jasper’s ass at beer pong. It wasn’t completely his fault; his partner, Maya, some transfer from Weather High whom he’d been googly-eyed over for the past month or so, had failed to make a single shot. Monty had also been on fire, so the other pair had given up after four lost games in a row. Monty followed them over to the drink table, leaving Raven to lean back against the couch.

 

Wick’s brace was holding up surprisingly well. Maybe she wasn’t noticing the pain as much because of the alcohol, but she could put a decent amount of weight on her knee without feeling like she was going to fall flat on her face. She’d tinkered around with it a bit at a home, but there were still changes to be made once she had access to a full set of tools. Regardless, it was nice to be able to pass through the crowd without needing an extra foot or so of space on each side for her crutches.

 

Picking up her drink from the corner of the beer pong table, Raven made her way to the dining room to take part in a game of flip cup when she caught sight of Miller sitting on the stairs, a surprisingly non-Miller expression of misery on his face as he nursed a cup between his hands.

 

She stopped at the foot of the stairs, testing her weight on her knee. Miller looked up at the slight groan of pain she let out of her mouth. “You all right, Raven?” He made as if to stand, offering her a hand that she waved away.

 

“Yeah.” Anchoring herself on the bannister, Raven made it up the steps and plopped down on the space he’d slid over to make for her. “Never leave fine mechanics to an engineer.”

 

Miller nodded, clearly having no clue what the hell she was talking about, and returned to moping in his drink’s general direction.

 

“So what did beer ever do to you?”

 

He laughed hollowly, knocking back the last few suds in the cup. “With the shit Bellamy buys, I’m surprised it hasn’t done more.” Raven allowed him a moment as she took a sip of her own drink before fixing him with the Patented X-Raven Stare, as Clarke loved to call it. “Why does no one go to the Homecoming dance at this school?”

 

She shrugged. “People couldn’t get hold of the Benzes for the evening?” Miller’s face wrinkled in confusion. “Long commutes, shit like that I guess.” Raven paused for a moment. “Is there a reason you wished they did?”

 

Miller’s eyes flicked over to the kitchen, and Raven leaned forward to see Monty and Jasper at the edge of the table, Jasper’s goggles over his eyes as he animatedly told some story to Maya while Monty fixed another drink. “Jasper?” Miller shook his head. “ _Oh._ I think you’re doing the social ladder cliché backwards, Miller.”

 

“I’m a failure at the high school movie. Quarterback fell for the yearbook editor who doesn’t seem to know he exists.” Miller ran his hand over his head ruefully.

 

“This school seems to have a shit ton of surprisingly emotional football players.”

 

“Wanna expand on that?” Miller asked.

 

Clenching her jaw almost automatically, Raven heard the victory roar that Bellamy seemed to feel the need to let out after every successful shot in beer pong. “Yeah no.” She took another sip. “But Monty.”

 

Miller sighed. “It’s the cardigans.” Raven laughed. “But really. He’s brilliant and has somehow managed to keep Jasper alive for the last sixteen years, so that’s gotta say something.”

 

“Hey, you could do a hell of a lot worse.” Monty, Jasper, and Maya passed them in the hall at that moment, Monty shooting a smile in their direction. “Is there a game plan, or are you just gonna continue blushing like an idiot every time he walks by?”

 

“It’s tempting,” Miller groaned. “But yeah, working on it. Unfortunately, I think I might have to kill Jasper to get a moment of attention.”

 

“Jay is a bit of a needy little bitch sometimes. And hey, if you need somewhere to hide the body, I live near some really nice junkyards.”

 

Miller laughed, standing up and offering a hand to Raven. “Why don’t we hang out more, Reyes?”

 

“Couldn’t tell you,” she replied. “I’m awesome.”

* * *

For the second time since Octavia had returned, Clarke thanked god that Bellamy was not in the room. This time, though, she was not the culprit. Okay, maybe she’d done a body shot off of Octavia earlier, particularly enjoying Lexa’s widened eyes as she’d plucked the lime from her friend’s mouth, but it wasn’t anywhere near what was going on currently. Pressed against the wall in the corner, Octavia and Lincoln had been making out for a long enough time that Clarke was getting concerned for their ability to breathe.

 

Clarke herself sat on the couch, waiting for Lexa to come back with drinks. To her surprise, Lexa had kept up admirably with Clarke and Octavia, though she had spilled a bit of her last shot down her shirt (Clarke certainly had not watched it travel down her chest at all). On top of this, she knew the words to an astonishingly large amount of the Jonas Brothers discography, a fact Clarke had discovered when Octavia had managed to commandeer Bellamy’s iPod for twenty minutes.  

 

Lexa dropped onto the couch next to Clarke, sloshing a few drops of the drink onto Clarke’s arm. She let out a gasp. “Oh my god, Clarke.” Placing the drinks onto the table in front of them (and spilling more from the force with which she did it), she wiped the liquid off of Clarke’s arm with her hand, sticking her fingers into her mouth to get the sugary drink off.

 

It was at that moment, two of Lexa’s fingers placed between her slightly parted lips, that the two made eye contact. Clarke suddenly couldn’t breathe, and she watched as Lexa’s face flushed. She leaned in for a moment before Lexa dropped her hand and shoved Clarke’s drink between their faces.

 

They both took an especially long gulp, sitting there for a moment in silence as Octavia and Lincoln finally managed to detach themselves from the wall and returned to the kitchen for another drink. Lexa fanned herself with her drinkless hand, eventually switching to pulling the front of her shirt away from her body to allow for a bit of air flow. _Well fuck._

 

Noticing Clarke’s stare, Lexa returned to fanning herself. Clarke cleared her throat. “It’s hot in here.”

 

“Yeah.” Lexa finished the rest of her drink in a single gulp as silence descended over them once again. “Do you want to go outside?” The fact that that sentence came out of Lexa’s mouth seemed to shock both of them, and Clarke nodded wordlessly as she downed the rest of her own drink and led the way through the kitchen and out of the house.

 

It became evident as they made their way down the street that they were both very drunk. Lexa, slightly ahead, had decided that the best course of action was to face Clarke and walk backwards. Clarke did her best to stare at anything other than the strip of skin between Lexa’s shorts and top, exposed as she raised her arms like a gymnast on a balance beam.

 

“Best idea ever,” Lexa said. “ _Way_ too hot in there. I couldn’t see. I mean breathe. Both?” She laughed at her own slurred words, a surprisingly light and airy chuckle that made Clarke’s stomach jump. They continued in this manner for a few minutes, Clarke darting forward to save her a few times when Lexa almost crashed into a car or a lamppost or a bush.

 

Thankfully, when they reached the edge of the park, Lexa decided to walk like a normal human being again. Clarke heard nothing but her own heartbeat in her ears as Lexa’s hand brushed hers. The other girl suddenly stopped and turned towards Clarke, eyes intently locking onto hers as she drew closer.

 

Or so Clarke thought. Lexa suddenly let out a screech and sprinted past Clarke, who whirled around to see the oh-so-dignified Lexa Heda chasing a squirrel between a pair of trees. With long limbs flailing as she ran, it shocked Clarke that this girl could be one of the best runners in the state. The chase ended a minute later when Lexa smashed into a bush and landed flat on her ass, looking incredibly confused.

 

Clarke pulled Lexa off the ground once she’d recovered from being doubled over with laughter. “What the actual fuck?”

 

“I love raccoons, ok?”

 

Unable to stop the incredulous look spreading across her face, Clarke bit her lip to contain another burst of laughter. “What does that have to do with anything?”

 

“It was a raccoon!” Lexa pointed wildly in the direction that her mysterious forest critter had run.

 

“Lexa. That was a squirrel.”

 

Lexa’s bottom lip stuck out as she sulked. “Clarke. I know what a raccoon looks like.”

 

“Maybe normally, but drunk off your ass, you’re not the best zoologist.” Lexa’s brow furrowed further before she let out a sigh. Still attempting to hold in a snicker, Clarke spotted a bench over Lexa’s shoulder. “C’mon, let’s sit down for a sec.”

 

Ignoring Lexa’s protests, Clarke placed her on the bench, holding her down by her shoulders to make sure that she’d stay before taking her own seat. Their arms brushed against each other, and Clarke turned to see a twig poking out of Lexa’s curls. Without thinking, she pulled it out, dropping it to the ground. By the time she looked back up, Lexa had closed the distance between them.

 

Their lips met gently at first, and Clarke let out a small squeak of surprise that caused Lexa to almost pull back before Clarke threaded her hand back into her hair and deepened the kiss. Clarke felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the world around them, but she couldn’t care less whether she could breathe or not, especially as Lexa’s hand cupped her jaw, her thumb traveling lightly from Clarke’s earlobe to her chin.

 

Clarke pushed Lexa’s shoulders back, causing the other girl to let out a sigh at their lack of contact. This turned into a moan a moment later as Clarke straddled Lexa’s hips. Before Clarke could weave her fingers back into her hair, Lexa’s mouth was at the base of Clarke’s neck. Clarke gripped Lexa’s shoulder with one hand and the back of the bench with the other, her throat tightening as Lexa sucked at her pressure point before pulling Clarke’s mouth back down to her own.

 

Sliding her hand underneath Lexa’s top, she was rewarded with direct contact with those abs she’d seen so much of in the past few weeks, coinciding with a sharp intake of breath from Lexa. As Lexa’s hands moved to Clarke’s waist, she was hit by a blinding flash of light. _Well, I guess some people really can make you see God._

 

“Hold up for a moment.” A man’s deep voice rang out, and Clarke let out an indignant squeak as Lexa shoved her off her lap and onto the ground. Scrambling up, Clarke squinted into the light before recognizing the person behind it.

 

“Captain Miller?” Nathan Miller’s father, captain of the police force, flicked off his flashlight and blinked a few times.

 

“Clarke Griffin?” He smiled, placing the flashlight back in his belt. “What are you doing out here?” His eyes flicked over to Lexa, who was doing her best imitation of a deer in headlights as she jumped up and smoothed out her shirt.

 

“Nothing, sir.” Clarke knew they’d gotten lucky. Any other cop would’ve attempted a sobriety test or something, but Captain Miller went way back with Clarke’s mother. “We were just having a movie night at my house and ended up going for a walk.”

 

“A walk.” Clarke nodded, her most angelic expression plastered onto her face. Captain Miller sighed. “Alright. Well, how about you head home and have your mother call me tomorrow to let me know that you got in all right?”

 

 _Well, not that lucky._ “Of course, Mr. Miller. Captain Miller. I’m sorry for the disturbance.”

 

Captain Miller nodded and walked off, muttering into his radio. Clarke turned to Lexa, who was still frozen a few feet back.

 

“Well, that could’ve gone a lot worse.” Lexa didn’t move a muscle, eyes still locked onto Captain Miller’s retreating back. “You alright?”

 

She seemed to snap out of it suddenly, eyes as wide as they’d been during the body shots. “Um. I. I need to go.”

 

Clarke took a step towards her, causing Lexa to jump back. “What do you mean? You live like three miles from here.”

 

“No, I. It’s fine. I need to go.” Lexa turned and sprinted away, leaving a dumbfounded Clarke, neck throbbing and shorts somehow unbuttoned, standing alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah. That happened. Don’t know what else to say here, but dumb babies are dumb. Come say hi on tumblr at anyasmud, and hope you enjoyed it! P.S. Sorry if you’ve written me a comment or anything and I haven’t replied. I honestly forget that you can reply on this thing because I’m just that smart, and I’m also generally pretty scatter-brained. I love you all for reading and commenting, so THANK YOU! If you have any specific questions or anything, it’s best to bother me on Tumblr because I never get off of it.


	10. No Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mutually shared hangovers and confusion abound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiiiiiiiiiii. Here’s some cookies and a lengthy apology letter because I suck. Yes, it has been around 2 months since I updated and yes I am a horrible human, but in my defense I was busy hanging out on the beach and doing that whole graduating thing and falling into further trashpiles. But I have returned triumphant to continue ‘Derpy Babies ft. Communication Problems and Nicki Minaj’ (feel free to skip to that verse if you want to). So a welcome back to my continuing readers and an awkward head nod to any newbies out there. Hope it’s been worth the wait.

A foot in the side was not precisely the way that Clarke wanted to be woken up that morning. She rolled over slowly from her position on what she realized was the floor, cracking her eyes open to see a smirking Raven Reyes standing over her.

 

“You should be glad I went with the bum leg, Griffin.” Raven was back on her crutches, the knee brace from the night before absent. “I may not be as much of an Amazonian track goddess as I was in the past, but I can still pack a punch.”

 

Clarke groaned, attempting to push herself up on her elbows before her stomach informed her that there would be serious repercussions if she continued. “You know I love to hear you talk about yourself, Raven,” she muttered. “But what are you doing in my house?”

 

Raven dropped her crutches to the floor, taking a seat in the chair behind her. “Did you forget how much Abby loves me? Maybe more accurately, she got sick of you locking yourself out three times a week. Gave me the spare key.” She twirled the item in question around her finger before sticking it in her pocket.

 

“We all know she’d adopt you in a heartbeat if she could.”

 

Raven shrugged. “But then how would you and I fulfill our destiny of getting married and making incredibly attractive, ethnically confusing super-babies?” Clarke’s scowl forced out a laugh. “Relax, Griffin. I know you’re taken.”

 

_Shit._ The events of the night before were all too clearly seared into Clarke’s head, from Lexa’s unfairly low-cut tank top to body shots off of Octavia to leaving the party, all culminating with Clarke standing in the middle of the street, shorts unbuttoned by Lexa’s surprisingly sneaky and alluringly dexterous fingers as the taller girl sprinted off into the night like a wounded gazelle.

 

“That reminds me, I need to text my mom.” Her mother had gone in on a late shift at the hospital that had turned into a lengthy, emergency surgery following a car crash on the highway. Regardless, she’d probably already have a message from Captain Miller waiting for her, so Clarke had to at least present a semblance of responsibility and let her know that she’d made it home safely. “So what’d you get up to last night?”

 

“Well, you and Octavia both abandoned me to suck face with the members of an unfairly attractive gene pool.” Raven picked up the stupid decorative wooden block that Abby had placed on the side table in a hopeless doctor’s attempt to ‘liven up the place,’ as she’d put it. Clarke personally hated the thing, far too clunky and a bit off in the color palette with the rest of the wooden objects in the room (not to mention the floor), but it always found its way into Raven’s ceaselessly restless hands when she’d visited. “So I got a ride home from Miller.”

 

“Really?”

 

Raven scoffed, tossing the block from hand to hand. “Please,” she said. “Football players are not what I’m going for at this moment.” Clarke could have sworn that an oddly serious grimace crossed her face on its way back to the typical cocky grin. “But Octavia certainly seemed to be enjoying their talents.”

 

“Please tell me Bellamy didn’t see.” Clarke finally eased her way up, swiveling so her back was pressed to the couch, legs underneath the coffee table. There was about a 50% chance she was going to puke in the next thirty seconds, but what’s life without a little risk?

 

“Not as far as I could tell.” Raven set the cube back on the table and pulled out her phone. “At least I haven’t gotten any news reports of a bloodbath in that area, so I think we’re set. But.” Clarke slowly began to shake her head. “You’re not getting out of this one.”

 

And Clarke really would have preferred to vomit at this moment rather than face the events of the night before that she didn’t even really comprehend yet. She’d never made anyone literally flee before with her kissing, and while her first instinct was to be mildly offended, Lexa sure as shit seemed to have been into it before they’d seen the light…literally. Not that that was ever a thing you could be sure about, particularly with alcohol involved, and Clarke’s gaydar may have been for shit, but there was _something_ there.

 

“Can’t we just focus on the other members of the Heda-Andrews clan?”

 

“Eh.” Clarke managed to move onto the couch, draping her body across it as she weakly raised her head to look at Raven. “Octavia at least seems to have her flirtation game down. Or she just knows what she wants, isn’t an idiot, and goes for it. You, my favorite bisexual idiot, do not seem to be in the same situation.”

 

“Do you have other bisexual idiots that I beat out for that title?”

 

Raven let out a snort before adopting a pensive expression, rubbing her chin woefully beardless chin. “Not that I know of,” she replied. “But I have theories. You’d still be my favorite, though.” She punctuated this with a wink.

 

“How come you’re only this peppy when I’m feeling particularly like shit?” Clarke’s phone buzzed, both girls lunging for it on the table. Of course Clarke’s incredibly hungover lunge was more of a lurch, and Raven beat her to it.

 

She sighed, tossing the phone back at Clarke, who somehow miraculously caught it with the help of her chest. “Just your mom.”

 

The message was simple and short, and Clarke couldn’t be sure whether it was because her mother had been up for about 36 hours straight or because she was saving all of her choice words for when she returned home. Regardless, she’d spoken to Captain Miller briefly and would be home in a few hours. Clarke responded as sweetly as she possibly could before dropping the phone face down within only her reach.

 

Raven stared at her expectantly, toying with a thread on her shorts with one hand as the other drummed on the arm of the chair. As always, Raven’s impatience, or as she preferred to term it, ‘desire for efficiency in life,’ won out, and she chucked the little wooden block at Clarke.

 

“Hey!” Clarke threw it back and missed by a good three feet. Out of further artillery, Raven settled for poking her with a crutch until Clarke held up both hands in defeat. “All right, all right. Jesus.”

 

“You could never resist my charms, Griffin.”

 

“We’re calling personal injury charms now?” Raven flippantly waved her hand, fixing Clarke with an expectant stare. “Only because you won’t fucking leave it alone.” She pushed herself up until she was leaning against the couch arm, head pounding. “So it was really hot at that party.”

 

“I mean, I was there, so...”

 

“Do you want me to tell you or no?” Raven grinned innocently, drawing her fingers across her lips in a zipping motion. “She asked me if I wanted to go for a walk. And I said yes.” Raven opened her mouth for a moment before shutting it immediately at Clarke’s searing glare. “We were both drunk, like crashing into bushes drunk. But she was so relaxed and happy and almost like a normal high school student.”

 

Raven nodded slowly. “So basically all of your future interactions should involve tequila?”

 

“You really have a problem with that whole letting other people speak thing, don’t you?” Raven gave her a sickeningly sweet grin, leaning back further into the chair and crossing her arms. “Anyways. She went chasing after a squirrel and started talking about raccoons for some reason, I don’t know. And then we were sitting on a bench and she kissed me.”

 

“Wait.” Raven was sitting up now, eyes wide. “ _She_ kissed you? Like she made the first move? Her lips went towards yours and touched them?”

 

“I believe that is how kissing works, yeah,” Clarke snapped.

 

Raven began furiously typing on her phone. “This may make me owe Octavia twenty bucks, but this is too damn good.”

 

“You assholes bet on me?”

 

“Correction.” Raven held up a finger. “ _I_ bet on you. Octavia bet on the weird nerd, or I guess the other weird nerd, because she’s a fucking psychic or some shit.” Clarke sighed, rubbing her throbbing temples and wishing for any other set of friends. “So? Why are you waking up on the floor instead of in your bed next to a gangly dork?”

 

“She ran.”

 

“What?”

 

“She literally ran off.” Clarke flipped her phone over, praying for any sort of message from Lexa. There were three Snapchats from Octavia and an email from the Johns Hopkins ListServ, but nothing else. “Your ride home’s dad showed up and kind of put an end to things.”

 

“Cock blocked by the police,” Raven said with a giggle. “Or _cop-blocked_ , as one might say.”

 

“I’m so glad that you find this funny.”

 

“Oh, I find it fucking hilarious.” She furrowed her brow for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip as the drumming from her fingers on the chair arm increased in pace. “So what do you think it means?”

 

Clarke dragged her fingers through her knotted hair. “Isn’t it your job to figure that out, oh wise elder?”

 

Leaning forwards with her elbows on her knees, Raven quirked an eyebrow. “Well, not like I really have too much else going on. Have you heard anything from her?”

 

“Yeah,” Clarke droned. “She wants to know what color scheme I prefer for the cake. The wedding’s next month and she’s also twelve weeks pregnant with our lovechild.”

 

With a snort, Raven stuck her tongue out at Clarke. “A bit touchy this morning, aren’t we? But yeah, that’s fair. So are you gonna text her?”

 

“She _ran_ , Rae.” And it really had sucked. Clarke didn’t really fall for people often. Yeah, she was young, and maybe the desire to be deeply in love at sixteen was a bit irrational, but she rarely even had crushes. There was a certain part of her that attributed this to self-protection after the disaster that had been Finn, and she definitely saw similar behavior in Raven, but it was rare for Clarke to get beyond the physical attraction for someone. It was just too easy to get disappointed.

 

But Lexa had managed it somehow, despite Clarke’s certainty for the first few weeks they’d known each other that she was putting up with Clarke’s company only for a resume boost. She was awkward, she was overly formal, and, as Octavia had said many times, she seemed to have a stick up her ass the size of a Yosemite Sequoia. And somehow, Clarke had found this all too endearing. She was so different from Finn in just about every way possible, Finn who had been all swagger, confidence, and the need to prove his intellectual superiority in every aspect of life. Lexa was brilliant, and it was evident just from her speech, not to mention the help she’d given Clarke in physics, but it was more of a subtle intelligence that Clarke could swear she was almost embarrassed of.

 

So yeah, she was also ridiculously attractive, all legs and muscles and brilliant green eyes that never failed to catch Clarke off guard when they met her own. Knowledge of Lexa’s hands and mouth certainly did not diminish her appeal either, but this tugging in Clarke’s stomach, wholly separate from her nausea, made her pretty damn close to wishing the night before had never happened. Close. Feelings were unfamiliar, and feelings were unsafe, and Clarke’s feelings had been her dad’s job.

 

“Well,” Raven began. “I’ve only kissed you once and we were both incredibly drunk and you sort of attacked me—“ She held up her hand at Clarke’s protests. “—But, you weren’t bad. I’m going to guess, just maybe, that there’s something else going on.”

 

Clarke fell back with a groan as she caught the back of her head on the couch arm. “Why are girls always complaining that it’s _men_ who are hard to understand?”

 

“It is interesting.” Raven had an almost hilariously serious look on her face. “Really, they’re mostly motivated by their dicks. But, on occasion, one of them will pull something else and then you’re just completely thrown off.” She was uncharacteristically silent, staring off into space.

 

“Something you need to tell me, Rae?”

 

Raven snapped back to reality, the Reyes smirk back in place a moment later. “Please. So what’s the first step in Operation Running Woman?”

 

“A better name,” Clarke muttered. “I guess…I should text her?”

 

“Seems like the reasonable move.” Raven’s eyes fixed on Clarke’s face, the crease returning between her eyebrows. “You really like this one, don’t you?”

 

Clarke let out a sharp exhale as she rubbed her eyes. “I don’t know. I just think there could be something there.” There was silence in the room as they both pondered the statement, Raven even sitting still for once in her life.

 

“Well,” Raven said slowly. “I can tell you one thing.” Clarke looked up, an inquisitive eyebrow raised. “I’m not secretly dating her.”

 

And she let out a cackle as Clarke’s thrown pillow collided with her head.

* * *

“Do I even want to know?”

 

Anya leaned around the entrance to the bathroom, fixing Lexa with a particularly damning stare as her younger sister gripped the edge of the toilet for dear life. She’d finally felt as if she was safe to sit up about twenty minutes before and was immediately rewarded with a wave of nausea that sent her sprinting, barely making it to the bathroom in time. At this point, Lexa was pretty much just there because she was too embarrassed to face the world.

 

She turned her body to face Anya, whose eyes traveled up and down her disheveled frame. “I wish I didn’t know,” Lexa replied, avoiding meeting her sister’s eyes.

 

“Uh huh.” Anya crouched down, pulling a water bottle out from behind her back and passing it to Lexa. Weakly smiling, Lexa pulled the cap off and took a tentative sip. “Had a bit too much to drink, or is your body just literally allergic to fun at this point?”

 

“I’m going to say a combination of the two is likely.” She sucked down half of the bottle before leaning back against the sink. “The latter is probably for my own good.”

 

Anya watched her closely, jaw working as always when she was puzzling through something. “Do I need to call over and make sure that our aunt hasn’t killed Lincoln?”

 

“He seemed to be handling himself relatively well,” Lexa said, punctuated with a slight snort at the end. “Not just himself, to be honest.”

 

Anya’s eyebrow shot up. “Again, do I even want to know? This is my baby cousin we’re talking about.”

 

“He has a good six inches on you, Anya.”

 

“And yet he knows as well as I do that I could still kick his ass.” She settled back against the wall, splaying her legs out on either side of Lexa. “So. Spill.”

 

“I’d really rather not.” Lexa shifted her leg tentatively, wincing at a twinge of pain in her right ankle. She dimly recalled tripping over a sidewalk edge in her mad dash away from Clarke, but there was a certain part of her that was convinced she deserved it.

 

“And I’d really rather not get my ass squeezed by dipshits at the bar almost every night, but it’s the world in which we live.” Anya kicked her lightly. “Spill.”

 

“There’s not much to say,” Lexa managed.

 

“Right. And that’s why you came barging in through the front door at two in the morning, muttering something about shorts buttons and flashlights, before stumbling into your room.” Lexa’s eyes bugged. “Yeah, I got home early.”

 

A feeling oddly similar to nausea built from Lexa’s stomach to her throat, and she plucked hesitantly at the bottom of her shirt, looking anywhere other than at her sister’s equally amused and judgmental expression. She’d kissed Clarke. She’d grabbed Clarke Griffin by the back of the neck and kissed her, and maybe Clarke had been the one to swing her body on top of Lexa’s, but Lexa was relatively sure she’d left Clarke with a line of marks down her neck. And she definitely at some point had started to undo those stupidly attractive shorts of hers.

 

Lexa Heda did not lose control. She knew she was socially inept and was still growing into her lanky form a bit, but everything in her life was scheduled and ordered and planned. It had worked for the past year, and she had a clear path in front of her. It kept her mind from wandering, kept her focused, and she needed that. For the first time in a while, however, she didn’t want it.

 

Last night had been a lapse in control, a moment when every thought she’d had throughout planning sessions, extensive conversations, and teenage daydreams that even someone like Lexa had came to fruition. It had all been golden hair, glimmering blue eyes, and eager hands, sweeping across her jaw and her stomach in motions that left her burning and desperate. Every thought was Clarke, threatening to fill that empty place in her mind that she’d locked off because there wasn’t a time in her schedule to face it. At that moment, Lexa’s oddly nauseous feeling announced itself as what it was, and the guilt threatened to swallow her like nothing had for a long time.

 

Anya watched her closely as she closed her eyes and swallowed, shoulders shaking even as she fought back sobs. And Lexa’s sister was there in a moment, wrapping her arms around her as those tears finally came, wordlessly intuiting thoughts that Lexa probably hadn’t even grasped in that odd way she always did. She brushed her fingers lightly over tangled hair that still had a few twigs in it from the night before, resting her chin on her younger’s sister’s shoulder.

 

“Hey, hey,” she murmured. “It’s all right. You’re all right.”

 

“I can’t do it, Anya.” Lexa’s words were broken, choked out through her tight throat. “I don’t want to forget her and I’m letting her slip away and it’s not fair. I promised myself. I promised myself for her.”

 

Gently shushing her, Anya pulled back and met her sister’s glassy eyes. “You’re not forgetting her, Lex. You haven’t done anything wrong, okay?”

 

Lexa shook her head, tears spreading already mussed eyeliner in streaks down her face. “I can’t.” And they stayed like that for hours, Lexa murmuring the words over and over like a prayer as Anya held her close.

* * *

By Monday, Clarke still hadn’t texted Lexa. She really could be all bluster at times, and Raven was beginning to wonder how she had ever thought that Clarke Griffin had game. It probably helped that she looked something like a Greek goddess, because hey, Raven had eyes, but beneath the flowing locks lay the mind of a prepubescent twit who thought that medical puns were the height of flirtatious conversation.

 

Nothing much else had really come out of the party; thanks to Bellamy’s drunken desire to play beer pong for literally four hours straight, he had missed Octavia and Lincoln essentially having sex against a wall for most of the night. Jasper had, yet again, failed to make a move on Maya, and Miller had spent the majority of the evening shooting googly eyes at Monty that Raven was relatively sure were returned at points.

 

So Octavia was almost frustratingly on top of the world, even as she’d put about fifty pounds of concealer to cover up the hickey poking out over the top of her uniform shirt. Clarke was forced to adopt similar methods, because Lexa Heda apparently could make quick use of her mouth, even under limited time constraints. Raven had almost fallen over from the shove Clarke had given her when she’d made that statement.

 

At this point in time, it was last period, and Raven was paying far less attention to her AP Lit teacher’s extensive commentary on Faulkner than she was to the sketch in front of her. She’d spent most of the weekend, when she wasn’t attempting to salvage Clarke’s love life, redesigning Wick’s knee brace. It had held up surprisingly well at the party, and Raven had to admit that she enjoyed a freedom of movement where she wasn’t immediately given a five-mile radius thanks to her crutches, complete with the pitying stares of everyone around her. So yeah, maybe it was nice to get to use the handicapped parking spaces in the city (which she’d only given in on after Clarke had literally dragged her to the DMV), but Raven had figured out a way to live her life pretty similarly in most areas otherwise, and she did not appreciate that others automatically limited her.

 

Bellamy was sitting to her right, continuing their unspoken agreement to completely avoid eye contact with each other as best as possible. Although there weren’t any assigned seats in the class, there was really no way to move anyone from their chosen spot after about a week into the semester. Plus Raven didn’t want drama just because she’d stopped having sex with her friend, sex that they hadn’t told anyone about and really did not plan to.

 

She realized she’d been staring at him for a good minute, because, again, Raven had eyes, and there was something about the way his stupid curly hair framed his face that had always gotten to her, no matter how much of a pansy ass emotional mess he was internally. He looked up, shooting her a quizzical stare that she responded to with an eye roll before turning back to the drawing in front of her and making some completely unnecessary squiggles along the side.

 

The bell rang, and she stayed in her seat for a moment longer than usual as Bellamy stood up, looked down at her, and opened his mouth before seeming to think better of it and following Miller out of the classroom with a sigh. Raven shoved her notebook into her bag and made her way to the garage.

 

It was conveniently empty, and Raven cleared a pile of wires and a soldering gun that was surely Wick’s off of a workbench before dropping her bag on the floor, placing the sketch on the table along with a pencil for any needed corrections, and crossing the room to the cubby where she’d been keeping the brace. The fabric was surprisingly sturdy for its weight, a fact of which Raven was particularly appreciative. She could find plenty of spare metal shit between the shop class and the garage, but this sort of high quality material was probably a bit out of the realm of what she could pinch from the Home Ec classroom.

 

Putting in her headphones and flipping to the Spotify playlist that she and Clarke shared, now with the occasional addition from Octavia, Raven lost herself in the work. So maybe she was lying to herself when she said that her life was relatively unchanged in most areas; a completely wrecked set of college plans and the inability to participate in your life-long afterschool activity and main form of stress release did lead to a bit of drastic readjustment. But mechanics and fine-tuning were still wholly possible even with a bum leg, and it focused Raven’s head enough to block out any other thoughts that dared to get in her way. She’d always been a bit restless with her hands growing up, and her mother’s lack of attention had turned into a small blessing when she’d wandered off into the junkyard near their apartment, slipping her way through a hole in the fence and building a small collection of spare parts and rusted tools that she’d turned into little gears and mechanisms that ranged from frivolous spinning toys to pieces that ended up repairing the constantly breaking appliances at home.

 

She was shocked out of her work about two hours in by an interruption in the playlist caused by a call from Clarke. Clarke never called unless she was drunk, and even Party Animal Clarke Griffin was unlikely to be wasted at 4:37 on a Monday afternoon. “What’s up, Doc?”

 

“You need to get out to the front of the school.” Clarke’s voice was pinched and desperate, lowered to barely above a whisper. “I don’t know exactly what’s happening but I’m guessing you’re at the garage and you’re closer than I am and something is going on with Octavia and Bellamy.”

 

Dropping her wrench and picking up the crutches on the floor, Raven slipped her phone into her back pocket before pressing the button to open the garage door and making her way out as quickly as she could. The garage was located off of the main parking lot, just down the hill from the front entrance. Ignoring the pain in her leg, Raven crossed the grassy hill, rounding the corner to see Octavia standing between Bellamy and Lincoln, hands pressed against her brother’s chest.

 

Bellamy was still in full pads, his helmet discarded behind him and a truly terrifying expression on his face, eyes blown wide and jaw clenched. For his part, Lincoln looked somewhere between confused and defiant, muscles in his arms slightly tense even as they rested by his side. But Bellamy’s face had nothing on Octavia’s.

 

She may have barely stood at her brother’s shoulder, but Octavia Blake looked like she was ready to rip him apart. She’d clearly just come from practice, and a slight sheen of sweat glistened on her shoulders, defined jawline set as if her teeth were grinding beneath it. It was unclear whether her arms were flexed because Bellamy was pushing against her or because she was preparing to tear him limb from limb, but the mutual Blake athleticism was certainly evident.

 

“Bellamy, back off!” He pushed forwards, only to be shoved back a good three feet by his sister, who turned to place her other hand on Lincoln’s body as he took a step forwards at Bellamy’s motion. “You two need to stop!”

 

“Octavia, don’t.” Bellamy’s voice was barely above a growl, but Octavia’s shout was drawing a small crowd from the team practices going on near them. Lincoln’s eyes flicked desperately over to Raven as she drew near. “I catch you and this guy in the middle of…I don’t even wanna know, and you’re telling _me_ to back off?”

“Look, man—“

 

“—Lincoln.” Octavia’s glare turned to the taller boy behind her, who stepped back, eyebrow slightly cocked. “He wasn’t doing anything wrong, Bell. We’re…um—“

 

“Dating.” Lincoln spoke up, a small smile crossing between him and Octavia at his words as she nodded. Clarke came sprinting out of the front door at that moment, flying down the steps before she skidded to a halt on the opposite side of the confrontation from Raven.

 

Bellamy’s eyes narrowed, and he looked over at Clarke as she stood there, panting. The tension hung in the air, and none of the five seemed willing to take a breath to break it. Eventually, Bellamy’s hands dropped to his sides, and Octavia stepped back from between the two of them. She turned to face Clarke, shaking her head. “I swear to god,” she muttered.

 

And something in Bellamy snapped. As Lincoln took a step forwards, hand outstretched for a shake, Bellamy pulled his arm back, fist colliding into Lincoln’s jaw with a crack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I hope that wasn’t awful. I haven’t watched The 100 in a while, and hiatus does funny things to your brain. I have once again changed my URL, so I’m over on Tumblr at bicamitchell if you want to yell at me about this. I hope everyone’s having a great day and that none of y’all are getting punched in the face.


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